Guardian
by minatochan2
Summary: The war takes a turn for the worst when Naruto is forced to protect a group of rebels intent on destroying Konoha. Suspicious and strict, everything is more convenient when the leader happens to be an alternate version your father. What could have been had Minato not become the Fourth Hokage but someone very different... A.U-travel.
1. Through the Fog

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto ;ONO;

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_Giving your life for someone you love is better than watching that person give their life for the same love._

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**Chapter 1:** Through the Fog

_"If the weakest link falls, who is to say that the rest are not better off?"_

_What makes someone weak enough that their death is beneficial?_

_What makes someone strong enough to say that?_

_Who can speak for the dead?_

_Who is to say anything at all?_

_How could someone _think_ that?_

_How could anyone believe that?_

_How could _he _have believed?_

_Believed any of it?_

_Why?_

_Kami, _why?

It was all a lie. He hoped it was. He'd realize he'd never existed, and it would be as if nothing had ever happened. Absolutely nothing. He would be in the middle of nowhere; he'd have no thoughts, no pain.

It was even darker now. Nighttime. The clatter of sandals swiftly faded down the corridor outside. The third watch was over.

Naruto hardly gave the motions of the outside world any thought; it had become natural to ignore them. He hazily hovered further back into the cell, not daring to venture too quickly. It was probably just another genjutsu.

Genjutsu.

Who ever created such a thing?

Genjustu.

Why had he ever wanted Ero-Sennin to teach him that?

Taijustu. Ninjutsu. Neither of them messed with who you were, bent what you knew so out of shape that you wondered if you'd ever known it at all.

Didn't people know that sanity was all anyone could cling to? Didn't they know?

Naruto managed to find a wall. He faintly embraced the coolness of the tile besides the fact that he was already chilled to the bone.

It was too dark to see, too quiet to hear. Someone had snapped their fingers, and the entire world shut off. No sound. No light. Nothing. Didn't they know people liked to hear? Didn't they know people liked to see?

Naruto certainly did. His staggered breathing morphed into the whispers of long forgotten friends.

_"Naruto, you baka!" Sakura would say._

_"What a loser."_

Maybe they'd never existed either. The thought seemed reassuring. Neither of them had faced any pain…

Naruto shook his head. He was alive. They must have been too. Or maybe not. Maybe they'd died back then, back in the war. He hadn't been there. The realization made the world seem even darker.

He shuffled further along. Even if it was a genjutsu, he figured he might as well find out where he was. He'd been in a similar setting before. His fingers sensed another corner, and he followed the path. The room wasn't too spacious. Oh, well. It's not like he'd have been able to see it if he wanted to anyway.

He wished that his sense of smell had been stolen instead. The cell was haunted with the stench of decay and corpses that danced in the air around him, but he forced his head down and continued his exploration. He silently prayed that he wouldn't find anything unsightly. He laughed awkwardly. Perhaps it hadn't been a bad thing that it was too dark to see.

As he walked, a disturbing thought prodded his mind. When had reality stopped? Even his dreams seemed more real than his waking hours; living was the real nightmare. He sprinted through his memories, desperately searching for the place where the seams of his psyche had come undone, sheer panic ripping through his system. An image immediately burned past his blind eyes. Naruto shut himself off from the swirling heat of emotions as soon as he felt the first lick of the flame, nearly falling over as the torrent subsided.

_He had turned his back._

Naruto forced himself to swallow down the feelings and carry on.

He wanted to curl up and die. Why wouldn't these people just let him die? It seemed so unfair. If a man wanted to stop living, didn't he have that privilege? It was his life, right?

Naruto felt so lost inside. He was his greatest ally, and he didn't understand himself, trust himself. Where was Kurama?

The fox gave no answer from his subconscious. He was completely and totally alone.

Naruto took a moment to listen to the silence. He could hear his heart beating in his ears and the quickening of his breath, the noise deafening in the sadistic stillness.

Alone.

Not that. Anything but that.

The blonde took a deep, calming breath and dedicated himself to making it around the perimeter. Tedious goals were the only things that were keeping him together.

He trudged cautiously next to the wall, appreciating the winter chill that somehow seeped through the cracks and bit his skin. The timeless rhythm of his feet against the floor offered some security. It was something he could control, something that neither genjutsu nor reality could strip from him.

His foot bumped something. Naruto nearly jumped out of his skin in surprise, stumbling back a few steps while staring at a spot he couldn't see.

Someone else was there.

He cautiously slipped closer, reminding himself of the boisterous scent that permeated the room. His limbs froze as he forced his hand to move closer.

Even when he touched the smoothness of human skin, he couldn't help but flinch back. The person was still warm; he had expected them to be as cold as ice. It meant they were alive.

Naruto nearly choked on his own astonishment. He had no idea how long he'd been there—it felt like it'd been a lifetime—but never before had he been in contact with someone outside of the interrogators. It must've been fake, the whole thing. He was certain of it now.

He moved closer against his own judgment, taking a seat beside his cellmate and hugging his knees. Naruto tapped the person lightly with his foot. _They're probably unconscious_, he concluded after a few tries, returning his head to the front.

He felt like a joke or an icebreaker should have been bursting from his lips. After all, this was the first normal person he'd run into, genjutsu or not. His mind was still too jumbled to come up with anything, however, and in the end, he simply gave up with a sigh.

Naruto edged closer to his companion, relishing in the faint warmth they spared him. He wondered what they looked like, what their name was, if they had anyone they cared about back from wherever they were from.

_Why? Do you have anyone who cares about you?_ they would ask.

_No, sir. Not here I don't. No, ma'am. Not here._

_Why not?_

Naruto coughed as a lump of tears formed in his throat. He swallowed it down and pushed all of the memories back down, practicing as much self-control as he could manage. Besides, they were probably fabricated anyway, all of the loyalty, the joy, the betrayal. None of it was real.

The same thought tore itself back into his consciousness: when had reality stopped? The paralyzing anxiety was almost more than he could take, breaking his strained peace into thousands of pieces. Could someone's life just stop like that, a clock whose gears were stuck while time continued, completely oblivious of the inner struggle? It didn't even seem possible.

Naruto exhaled coolly, taking a moment to collect his thoughts for the first time in days, weeks, months? It was clear that he couldn't start at the end; his recent memories still needed time to scab over.

Black Zetsu. Madara. Obito. Kaguya. The War. Naruto agreed. Everything else, every other memory, all led up to that same point. If he had known what would happen, he probably would have let the plant-jerk go about his business. Naturally, as Uzumaki Naruto, when he overheard some alternate plan to obtain the bijuu, an alternate plan to end _him_, he had been very interested. Some crazy time-travel—or whatever the heck it was—jutsu had not been what he was expecting at all. He learned his lesson. He shouldn't have tried to tackle anyone in the middle of a hand-sign sequence.

_Maybe that was when_, he wondered, distantly rubbing his arms to conserve heat. Naruto frowned. Kaguya hadn't been anywhere near there. He was sure of it. Unless Zetsu had taken up genjutsu without him knowing, there was no way that time had stopped there.

The blonde decided to take the imaginative leap and assume that that whole episode had been true. He breathed into his cupped hands, the humidity livening his fingers. So, if he had started to lose it afterward, then he had to journey closer to those recent, cutting recollections. Oh, kami. Where had it all started?

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**Author's Note:**

I didn't plan on having half the story told in a flashback, but that's what happened. :/ Guess you guys'll just have to deal with the Kishimoto-ness. Minato comes up soon, don't worry.

If it doesn't say it's discontinued, it's not, so please follow (leave a review for the tiny person? ;u;).

Minatochan2


	2. Awakening

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto. ;A;

_Italics_ means: a dream (or a dream-like state), or an emphasized word(s). In conversation, it means a character is either thinking, or Naruto is talking within his mind (usually to Kurama).

**Bold **means: Kurama is talking, there is a narrated time-skip, or Zetsu is talking.

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**Chapter 2:** Awakening

_When?_

**The first thing Naruto** could remember was a blinding flash of light, the speed of it enough to turn the whole world black and white. Voices and people, his people, all vanished into thin air as a sudden stillness enveloped his senses. Oxygen harshly escaped from his lungs when his back collided with the ground.

Naruto didn't have the energy or motivation to move, his mind still dancing to the drumming of his heart. Chirping birds and the rustling of trees swam through his ears as the paralyzing silence faded. He hazily shuffled his legs, testing to see if he was still in one piece. They operated, and he moved onto the impossible task of opening his eyes. It took a moment for the entire world to move into one blur from the seven, illogical ones he saw at first. Eventually, he discovered that it was not nearly as dark as he remembered it being, an array of happy colors singing along the composition of the sky, and the tall trees to all of his sides disagreed severely with the last memory he had. _What had that been?_ he asked himself as he lifted a hand to rub his aching head.

Black Zetsu. Madara. Obito. Kaguya. The War.

Naruto instantly bolted upright, scanning the area for any clues as to where his opponent was, a rush of blood and pain streaking through his limbs. The scenery seemed tranquil enough, but to him, it was the complete opposite. It was too quiet, too peaceful, too simplistic. There was no obvious venom that clung to the air; only the faint, aromatic smell of oaks and grasses greeted him. He shifted uncomfortably to his feet, a hand staying on the ground for the support that his legs refused to provide him. The whole scenario was suspicious.

_Kurama?_

The fox bobbed his head to display his equal feeling of unease. **He's still here. I can still sense him. Kaguya, however…**

Naruto watched the demon precariously, waiting for further explanation.

**Go into bijuu mode, and maybe then you'll understand.**

The blonde did as much. Warm chakra soon licked at his skin and ebbed away at the shadows of the surrounding trees. But that was the least of his concerns. Once again, he realized that everything was wrong: the chakra signatures, the placement, the people. They weren't his people. His people were all in the same place, fighting some unstoppable dream triggered by an Uchiha who had convinced himself of an insane, inhuman peace. Here, there was no cluster, an indication of an army, and there was no mass amount of chakra. All of his friends' chakras were dispersed everywhere, some of them not even existing. No Kaguya. No Team 7. No army. Just where the heck was he!?

Naruto carefully shifted his weight among his feet, still searching for some shred of continuity. There was no way it was a genjutsu. Genjutsu could mask and morph chakra, yes, but it could not do so to the level he could sense; genjutsu could not create an accurate and believable personality.

He swallowed warily. So this was real, at least, he thought.

Inside the seal, Kurama worked his jaw in concurrence. **Naruto, we should just focus on finding Zetsu for now. He's a few miles north of here. We'll make him cough up everything and change it back.**

Naruto agreed, letting the cloak of energy disperse to mask his own presence._ Do you remember where his energy is?_

Kurama snorted at the ignorance of the question but nodded his head regardless.** Of course. He shouldn't be able to move too much. Just keep going straight for a while. I'll tell you when we're close to where he last was.**

With that, Naruto vanished into the shadows of the foliage. The jinchuriki remained fairly vigilant, the lushness of the forest buzzing past him as he leapt from tree to tree.

What a mess this had turned out to be. He didn't have time to waste on someone like Zetsu. Kaguya was still at large outside of this maelstrom, and he had people depending on him there. Besides, there wasn't anything that Zetsu could gain by picking a fight with him.

An espionage shinobi was practically worthless in a one on one, especially when it came to someone like himself. Naruto took a moment to gauge the akatsuki member's abilities. As far as he knew, Zetsu knew no advanced taijutsu, genjutsu, fuuinjutsu, or ninjutsu outside of the realm of reconnaissance and spying. Naruto was stumped as to why he would risk having a solo encounter.

**He must have a trump card that we don't know about.**

_Sure looks that way._

**Be on your toes**, Kurama advised, resting his head on his paws in a seemingly lazy way. His narrowed, crimson eyes betrayed his composure.

It felt like miles took hours, even at the quick pace Naruto was traveling. Kurama occasionally redirected him, but for the most part, the time was spent in a perplexed and anxious quiet.

**Here.**

Naruto stuttered to a halt on the forest floor. A small stream of light filtered through the canopy, reflecting dully on the dust and pollen in the air.

_Are you sure?_ he inquired hesitantly, glancing around at the apparently harmless environment. He had been expecting a gut-wrenching feeling to take hold, but for some reason, he felt unexplainably calm.

**Naruto**, Kurama began. **Look in front of you.**

Naruto did as directed, spotting the slight flash of a cord a step ahead. He knelt down to get a better view. "A trip-wire?" he asked aloud, his eyes following the cable. There were dozens spun throughout the area. The blonde mutedly lectured himself for missing something so painfully obvious.

He was here. There was no doubt about it.

Naruto let the dam of Kurama's chakra burst back through his veins, the abrupt pulsation singeing the grass beneath his feet. The teenager ignored the sensation, however, and focused whatever he could on locating his adversary. It took longer to sift through the massive number of chakra signatures and restrict the search to his immediate vicinity than he had originally figured, but he soon had pinpointed his target. He was moving closer, much close than Naruto had initially thought. His muscles instinctively tightened as the pressure in his chest rose.

**Naru—**

"Hey, you!"

The blonde's cloak slipped off the instant he heard the commanding, high-pitched voice. He spun on his heels to face its owner. From what he could tell, it certainly didn't sound like Zetsu, and what would he have to gain by hiding his identity anyway– let alone in a girl who looked like she could have been thirteen?

"Don't move another step!" the person ordered, throwing Naruto from his reverie. (He hadn't really noticed her much as he was too concerned with Zetsu and his confusing tangle of tactics.)

"You're such a klutz, tripping my wire, loser!" she continued her monologue, a kunai glinting in her bandaged hands.

_I didn't trip anything_, he recalled in surprise. The blonde's eyes flickered around to look for any loose wires but found none.

**These guys are good. **

_Hn? _Naruto mentally looked over his shoulder to peer at his companion.

**Those trip-wires were chakra infused. If any foreign chakra so much as touched it, it would alert the person who set it. **

The blonde cringed when he spied a cord close to his foot. He would have to be more careful about using Kurama's chakra in the future. But another, direr question formulated in his mind.

"So much as a twitch from you and my friend behind you'll tear you to shreds," the teenager continued lecturing, her dark green eyes slitting to emphasize her point.

_There's more than one?_

Naruto blinked in confusion. He decided to take the girl's advice and stay still, suppressing the urge to glance at who was behind himself. Zetsu hadn't traveled with anyone else, and he didn't think that the person could make clones on his own. This made no sense. But one of them had to be him, right? What if he was hiding in the background? All the possibilities were enough to give him a headache.

**Naruto**, Kurama repeated, slightly changing his position inside his mind. **Don't try anything. We've got more pressing matters than Zetsu right now. There is a lot more activity in this than either of us first thought.**

_Let's get out of here then. I'm sure we ca—_

**Don't get ahead of yourself, baka. If you try to zip out of here using my energy, you'll do more than just tip off those trip-wires. They seem to be attached to something much bigger, explosives I'm guessing.** Kurama returned his chin to his paws. **This is obviously something pretty top-secret. We should stick around, and find out just what's going on, so we can plan accordingly.**

Naruto had opened his mouth to protest when the same girl's voice interjected. "Hey! I asked you a question!"

The blonde batted his eyes blankly, begging for her to repeat it. She placed her hands on her hips while she annoyingly blew a few stray, hazel bangs from her eyes. "You've either got the thickest head I've ever seen, or you're an expert at playing dumb."

"Stop stalling," came an eerily familiar voice from behind him, a man's voice. He must've been standing closer than Naruto had initially thought. "We know who you're working for, and don't even think of interfering. If you play nice, we won't have to kill you."

Naruto bit back the urge to respond, noting the two fingers pressed carefully on two pressure points in his back. He winced at the sternness of the contact and the way that a dull pain spiked across both spots despite the fact that it was not enough to cause him much harm.

"What's your name?" the man behind him recapped in that same, familiarly smooth voice. It was terrifyingly harsh yet reassuringly gentle. Naruto had heard it thousands of times before. The shinobi's partner huffed as if she was upset that she had been replaced as interrogator. Naruto ignored the gesture, focusing entirely on the person behind him and the unmistakable poker-face he no doubt was wearing behind the secrecy of a navy mask.

He had snapped open his jaw to answer, struggling to copy the calmness of his mental-adversary, when a large explosion rocked the forest floor beneath them. Naruto flinched as a shot of piercing chakra rocketed through his system. The man behind him must have jumped in his surprise, causing chakra to leap to his fingertips for an expected hand sign. Regardless of whether or not the whole incident was done on purpose, it still had the same effect. Naruto forced his knees to stay straight as they resisted the urge to buckle from the shock. He hadn't realized how exhausted he had already been, but when his joints and nerves all locked in an excruciating impasse, he discovered the extent of the toll his body had suffered from the nearly constant fighting of the past few hours.

Amid his own personal struggle, the world still moved on around him in a haze.

"There's more than one?" the hazel-haired girl cursed, darting through the snarl of trip-wires and leaving her comrade behind.

"Wa-wait! We're supposed to— I— you're impossible," her partner groaned in exasperation. Both of his fingers still remained on Naruto's back, but his focus was obviously elsewhere.

Kurama moved to his feet from the confines of the blonde's mind. **That has to be Zetsu. Bet he came out from hiding and triggered one when he was least expecting it. Typical**, he snorted. Naruto still wavered unconfidently on his feet, resting a hand on the side of one of the fox's paws.

_That's great, _he stated bluntly. He felt like any reserves of chakra he might have had were spent, and whatever he had left was quickly disappearing.

Kurama glanced toward the teenager, his eyes lingering on the swirl of characters forming on his back. **This guy knows fuuinjutsu, Naruto. We might be out of the race on this one.**

_Easy for you to say, _he snapped breathily. He might as well have been suffocating. Why was he so darn calm about it? Zetsu was probably going to kill everyone in the area and then extract him. His reaction didn't even make any sense.

**I don't know why, but I feel like something's missing here. **

Naruto glanced back up at him, his sight already starting to double, asking a silent question. Naruto's physical form was beginning to feel the effects of the glowing seal as well, the silver-haired interrogator still standing calmly behind him. He felt like he should have tried to move, but he didn't trust his legs enough, and the flashing of the wires close to him was a very real reminder of any potential repercussions of a failed get-away. He swallowed down the emotion to focus on what the brazen fox was still conveying. **I'll explain later**. Kurama decided once he saw the uncertainty on the teenager's face. **For right now, we need a base. Just let them take you captive for now. We won't be of much use to anyone the way things stand. You're exhausted from fighting all day, and we need a place to piece things together. Besides, they believe you have some info that could be of use, so they won't kill you while Zetsu obviously would the first chance he'd get. As strange as it is, these guys could prove quite useful.**

_Makes sense_, Naruto gasped, his hands dropping to his knees. _Enemy of my enemy could be my friend, right?_

**The world's not quite so simple, kid.**

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**Naruto shifted uncomfortably** against the cell wall. The icy coolness had begun to burn his skin instead of offering relief. He gnawed anxiously on his thumb, a bad habit he had undertaken since his capture, and glanced between where he believed his cellmate was and the door. The slight scar from where he had bitten his thumb to use a kuchiyose was able to be sensed by his teeth, a small dent on the otherwise unblemished skin.

He wished he could talk to Kurama; he had taken talking to him for granted. Gosh, now that he thought about it, he wished he could just talk to someone, anyone. It seemed interrogators were the only people who really wanted to ask and receive an answer. He lightly kicked the person to his right, not expecting a response that inevitably didn't come. The presence of someone other than himself was enough to pacify his reeling mind. He could think logically somewhat. Everything up to that point seemed real enough; time hadn't stopped at his capture.

The teenager leaned further back into the wall with a sigh. He wished he could simply dissolve into it and never remerge. Zetsu had it easy, he decided quickly, wherever he was. He knew that the ability would be useless in his situation, but it would have been nice to have had before. No justu would have helped him now. The benefits of all the countless hours of training, sweat, bloodshed, and determination had become just as worthless as the ground beneath his feet. The scar on his thumb began to bleed again, and he scolded himself for falling back into the same habit he had been trying to break himself of for days, weeks, months?

Naruto twisted his wrists, the needles bursting from inside of the bulky chains stretching and tugging his skin. _Chakra-suppressors_, he told himself again. Each time he tried, he hoped that the common, prickling sensation would be gone. But to his dismay, the stir of the pins beneath his skin was there every one of those tries.

He had already concluded that those were what kept him from being able to do much of anything. The traditional fuuinjutsu obviously wasn't good enough in this prison. He could recall Kakashi lecturing the old Team Seven years ago about chakra when they had learned tree-climbing. It was a system, a circuit. If the flow was broken in one place, the entire structure was practically worthless.

He held his hands out in front of himself although he knew the gesture was pointless because he couldn't see in the darkness. The system was broken in two different places, his hands, the only place he could form signs. Whenever Kurama's chakra was freely flowing, even in trace amounts, through him was when he could converse with the fox. His chakra coils must have been disrupted enough by those needles that Kurama's energy couldn't get through, but enough of Naruto's own could, at least, enough for him to live.

The explanation seemed sensible, and he decided to abandon any other thoughts pertaining to the chains. His head was already throbbing as it stood.

He exhaled calmly. As long as he could piece together some things, Naruto figured that his sanity was still in check. The small maneuver brought an unbelievable amount of relief to his aching muscles.

The blonde let his hands fall back into his lap and slid even closer to his unconscious cellmate. He needed to have some emotional support, small as it was, to even consider delving further into his memories.

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**Naruto's eyes slowly** slid open, the crescent of sight he was spared extremely vague. His head ached weakly, and the upright position he was in didn't help matters. He let his lids fall closed again, deciding to piece himself together before trying a second time.

He could hear a chorus of crickets and cicadas buzzing in the background. Nighttime. There was a chill breeze to blow off the humid air that was clinging to him. Summer. A rope was fastened around his torso. Prisoner.

Memories started to rush back to him at the mention of the word: the war, looking for Black Zetsu, running into that trap. He must have passed out and not realized it.

But none of the conclusions he made solved any of the mysteries that were bouncing around the insides of his skull. Where was he? Who was around him? What had those people thought he had been involved with?

Naruto wanted more of those answers, so he took another crack at opening his eyes. The first few times bore no fruit, but gradually, he managed to widen them enough to see clearly.

He was still in the same forest, a chill crawling along his skin as the scenery was much more ominous in the faint darkness of the coming dawn. Just how long had he been asleep anyway? The teenager could find no answer to that question, much to his dismay.

"You're awake."

Naruto practically jumped in the air at the interruption, his vision snapping to the man in front of him. He shouldn't have been so surprised to be greeted by a silver-haired shinobi with a red eye staring sharply back at him. The man looked identical to his sensei in every aspect, from the way his hair fell to the side to the way he carried himself. There was no doubt about it. This man was Hatake Kakashi, the famed Copy Ninja of Konoha.

Seeing him was a much different experience than hearing his voice. He didn't understand why it was, but that was the truth. It was like being punched in the gut by a whirlwind of realizations, so many that he could hardly even sift through them himself. Kakashi was there, not as his trusted sensei or friend, but as someone that didn't know him and vice versa. The relaxed coldness in his eyes spoke as much. Naruto shifted under that gaze, not sure how he could continue. He hoped that Kurama had been right and that all of this was worth it in the end. All he wanted was to go beat the crap out of a Zetsu, drag the creep's sorry butt back home, and finish his business with Kaguya. Any of this extra nonsense he really didn't want nor need. It was weird enough being held captive, but being held captive by a friend was in an entirely different realm of awkwardness.

**Don't worry, punk. The great Kyuubi no Kitsune is always right.**

Naruto highly doubted it, but having someone on his side was a comforting change, and it restrained him from arguing with the fox.

Kakashi went unaware of the conversation, strolling nonchalantly over to his side. The prisoner watched him carefully roll up one of his shredded sleeves and tinker with a circle of seals that Naruto had not even known were there. That would explain the numbness he felt in all of his limbs. The shinobi didn't spare him a second glance, finishing with his check and returning back to his post.

Within a few minutes of lengthy silence, a short boy had trotted up to the guard. Naruto had never seen him before in his life, a bizarrely common trend he had begun to notice since Zetsu had caught him in whatever jutsu this was. Kakashi knelt down and whispered a few things to the brown-haired child before sending him off again. Naruto watched him leave, taking slight appreciation in the glance he spared out of his black irises. He wondered just how large this organization was. Setting up all of those cords from before would have taken an eternity, he recognized with a faint frown, leading him to believe that it must have had a lot of people in it.

Kurama hummed in agreement from inside his mindscape. **Sure looks that way.**

Kakashi's pupils never left his figure, continuously causing Naruto to shrink back into himself to talk to his only friend. He could barely stand the tense quiet between the two of them. Only the chirping of the bugs around them kept the environment from becoming completely enveloped in it. He wished that he would pepper him with questions already. What was he waiting for anyway? Naruto's breath caught as he witnessed a flash of yellow, and he realized that it was not a "what" but a "who".

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**Author's Note:**

I'm pretty sure we all know who this mystery person is. ;) Yes, this story has OCs, but they are solely for the purpose of furthering the story line or adding comic relief. I play the game of Neutral Ground when it comes to pairings with Naruto, so don't expect any. :P

If it doesn't say it's discontinued, it's not, so please follow [and review?].

Minatochan2


	3. What's in a Name

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto. But I do know who Mr. Foot is now. :D

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**Chapter 3:** What's in a Name

"Namikaze Minato."

Iruka began his lecture, tapping the name displayed on the blackboard while parading in front of the classroom. Only a few students were actually paying attention to what he was saying, but he continued in spite of this. "His famed heroism during the Third Great Shinobi War gained him the alias 'Konoha's Yellow Flash', and he was easily the most feared shinobi across enemy lines." The teacher picked up another piece of chalk, scratching a few characters neatly on the board before continuing. "As serious and ruthless as he was in battle, Namikaze-san has frequently been described as a pleasant and likeable person. As future Konoha shinobi yourselves, I would hope that you all would aspire to become as great a shinobi a—" Iruka paused in front of Naruto (who had tactfully been moved to the front) and swept an origami frog off the child's desk, directing his free hand toward the wall where an array of kanji were written. "Or at least be able to recognize the Yondaime Hokage."

The boy distantly followed the man's index finger to where, "四代目火影"

was scribbled.

He had groaned in frustration, his concern more on the amphibious craft he had been working on than the hokage. He had been planning on making an army to launch during class, but alas, the adult had taken the model Choji had lent him. Had he known that one day he would actually need the information he was being taught, he might have paid more attention.

Naruto thanked his lucky stars that the man's face was carved into a mountain. One look at the person and it would have been impossible _not_ to recognize him. This case was no different.

The blonde hair, the feline arch of his eyes, the nonchalance mixed with overwhelming superiority. It all added up to that same person. The ghastly lack of the white hokage cloak Naruto had grown used to was a striking change, but it definitely didn't change the simple truth: he was Namikaze Minato, his father, alive and well.

His mind was stuck on the fact, complete disbelief written on his face. What type of twisted place was this? He forcefully caught his breathing when he realized it was speeding up. There was no point in freaking out, he scolded himself. He wasn't going to be here for very long anyway, and he needed to remain composed unless he wanted to get executed on the spot.

Naruto forced himself to return his thoughts to the outside world. He figured he must have been seeing Minato's more militaristic side as he watched Kakashi greet his teacher with a lazy salute. The blonde responded with a tilt of his head before taking a seat on top of a broken tree trunk, its side slumbering on the forest floor. Kakashi leaned against a nearby rock while he watched his sensei.

"What were you doing last night?" Minato jumped straight to the point.

**Hmm, looks like you weren't out too long, brat**. Naruto bobbed his head. He had had the same thought in mind. Days and hours were hard to differentiate; he easily could have been unconscious for a week, and the teenager wouldn't have been able to tell.

**Naruto**, Kurama reminded, opening one of his previously closed eyes.

The named person flinched when he noticed that the two men were watching him expectantly. "Looking for something," he muttered honestly. _Yeah, I just lost an army. You wouldn't happen to know where it went, would you?_

The Yondaime's face remained completely cold, his piercing blue eyes an arctic blizzard in the summer's dawn. The sparse light of the morning that wasn't choked out by the forest awning warily avoided his irises. His pupils were centered on Naruto's headband for a little bit, studying the symbol with a deep frown.

**Are you trying to look suspicious?** Kurama snorted as he rolled onto his side. The teenager's subconscious fidgeting in the real world pointed toward a "yes", no matter whose side you were on.

He earned a glare in return. _I'm sorry that I'm an awful liar! Oba-chan and Ero Sennin must've skipped over that lesson, tte bayo!_

The giant fox rolled his eyes. **Then don't lie.**

_Well, if that isn't the dumbest idea I've ever hea— Ow!_

Kurama potently flicked the tail he had just used to whack the jinchuriki upside the head. **You know, simply leaving out some information isn't the same as lying.**

Naruto squinted his eyes in confusion. _But I—_

**Turd**, the fox sighed again, notifying him of the outside world.

The blonde quickly snapped out of the seal. Kakashi and the hokage were sending him the strangest glares he'd ever received. _You're crazy_, they were probably thinking. One of them had definitely continued questioning him. Naruto wished that he would stop zoning out whenever someone asked him something. "Could you repeat that?" he laughed nervously.

Minato reiterated with an unflinchingly firm gaze, "What were you looking for?"

"Just a guy. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have anything to do with… whatever you're doing."

Kakashi shot a look to his sensei, who scowled and smoothly dropped to the ground. Naruto tensed when the man made his way over and knelt down dangerously close to him. His blue eyes glowed hazardously, a shiver ricocheting though Naruto's back as the air froze around him. "Look, kid. You can either take the easy route or the hard one. If you think you can play games with me, think again."

How had Kurama convinced him that it was a good idea to let them take him captive? Naruto let out a small breath, working the next sentence carefully in his mind before attempting to say it. "The name's Naruto, and that's the only truth I've got." He prayed that the confidence he had faked was real enough to pacify the two men before him. If anything, it only made the blonde a foot away more agitated.

"Naruto, right." He stood up and ran a hand through his hair. It was pretty obvious by Minato's sarcasm that he didn't recognize the name at all. Naruto grimaced. Even if this was a different world, wouldn't a father know his own son's name? _Maybe I have a different one here_, he wondered. Oh, kami, what if he ran into a different version of himself too!? He considered the idea with wide eyes for a moment, fully prepared to have an inward freak-out session, when the yondaime's voice severed his attention. "I don't have time for this. Kakashi, I'll have Aki relieve you in a few hours. Don't let this guy even breathe without your permission."

Naruto cringed at his failed attempt at honesty. Either way he looked at it, he couldn't make these people trust him. It didn't matter anyway; he wouldn't be staying for that long.

He watched as Minato stalked off behind a tree, vanishing with another hiraishin. The teenager was slightly disappointed that that was it, but he figured something big must've been going on, bigger than he could fathom. All of those trip-wires weren't exactly the red carpet, and the bags beneath both his sensei and his father's eyes spoke volumes about the recent activity. He wondered what it was exactly they were doing…

"Don't get any ideas," Kakashi warned in a passive tone, digging his hands into his pockets and resting further against the boulder behind him. The blonde still squirmed restlessly under the gaze of the silver-haired shinobi and investigated how much moving room he had against the rope around him. It was tied tight enough for him to have a bit of trouble breathing, and the cord dug red lines across his stomach whenever he made any motion, whether small or big. He let his head hang down in defeat. For the moment, it seemed like he was truly stuck.

* * *

Quickly into the next hour, Naruto discovered that this world's Kakashi made for equally as poor conversation as the Kakashi he had grown to know (although, in his defense, the blonde hadn't really make much of an attempt either), and he resorted to talking more to Kurama than anyone else.

**It'll take awhile for your body to recuperate, punk. Be patient.** The fox followed the blonde's pacing back and forth across the sewer of his mind, the water splashing angrily beneath his feet.

_How much is awhile? This is taking too long, tte bayo!_ Naruto turned and repeated his path across the demon's line of sight. _I don't have time to waste sitting here on my butt while Zetsu and Kaguya are off doing who knows what. _The blonde growled as he turned again. Nothing seemed to be going his way today.

Kurama exhaled his annoyance and rasped his claws against the watery abyss beneath him. **I thought we'd already been through this. Kami, you can't even see clearly right now.**

Naruto hesitated in his step. Okay, he had a point there. In reality, the edges of Kakashi's person blended with the background slightly, and his head still felt light from a lack of chakra. Mentally, he had speedily recovered from the first wave of nausea and faintness that his physical body was still suffering through and took the time he had to ponder his situation. _It's probably that stupid seal. _He shifted his tattered sleeve and peeled off the broken strands of the protective, wire mesh around his forearm. Perhaps if he had known more about sealing, he would have comprehended the nonsense chicken-scratch tattooed on his skin, but he didn't and decided to let Kurama have a look when he asked.

The fox spent an eternity pouring over the symbols, so long that Naruto's arm began to feel tired from holding it up. Kurama snorted angrily when the teenager began to let his arm droop, so he figured that he would just have to suffer through it until the demon finished. His stomach began to do nervous flips when his friend began rubbing his teeth together with a grimace. That expression didn't look good at all, and it wasn't hard for Naruto to know that something was terribly off.

Kurama eventually closed his eyes, allowing the blonde to return his arm to his side, and let out a breath as if he were a doctor contemplating how to inform a patient of some horrid news. Naruto practiced an unusual amount of patience while the fox picked his words carefully.

**Well, there are two sides to this coin. For one, the seal is fairly harmless to you in a resting state. It's only meant to suppress your chakra to the level of a civilian, so you can still do pretty basic tasks. This fuuinjutsu mixed with your already low energy is probably what's leaving you so pitifully weak. **(Naruto's shoulders drooped with an offended pout at the description.) **It won't kill you or leave you severely impaired if it is undone, but it does have a major disadvantage that could inhibit our cause. **The jinchuriki braced himself for the worst, sucking in a terse, mouthful of air. **This design is a combination of two different seals. The first is what is restraining your chakra flow, but the other….**

Naruto followed the fox's line of sight to the side before returning it back to the face of the feline. _What?_

**It has a multitude of trigger mechanisms should anyone try to break it forcefully. It's got a— **Kurama suddenly remembered exactly _who_ he was talking to when he saw his jinchuriki's confused expression, struggling to follow the flow of the conversation. **–a chakra password, if you will. It's pretty advanced. My guess is that our friendly yondaime increased the effectiveness of one Kakashi made the moment you blacked out. The styles and planes of the two are incredibly different.** Naruto glanced down at his arm again. It still looked like a child's drawing, but he didn't argue. **Anyway, the first plane is purely for that chakra suppression I was talking about earlier. The second is a mess of advanced fuuinjutsu and sealing way too complicated for you to understand, brat. I guess the closest thing I could relate it to is an advanced paper bomb. Trying to break or overwhelm this seal with chakra will… kill the both of us. Sorry to tell you, kid, but we're in for the long haul on this one.**

Naruto didn't know quite how to respond to that, the last sentence ringing in his head. And when he didn't know what to do, it was always best to scream into whatever was close enough.

* * *

Naruto was marching back and forth, his pace much quicker and louder this time, ranting about whatever happened to come to mind. The amber fox had since given up reconciling with him and was resting on the floor with an unamused gaze following the jinchuriki and his wild gestures.

_This is so stupid, tte bayo! I have to get back home where all of my friends are counting on me, and now you tell me that I'm some walking paper bomb!?_

**Not exactly a paper bomb. That was just an example.**

Naruto continued his frazzled rambling, completely oblivious to the animal beside him. _An—and I've gotta get out of here somehow because if I see one more person who should be dead or should know me and doesn't or I don't know, I swear I'm going to lose it! _

Kurama weighed the statement with a pondering tilt of his head. As far as he was concerned, the kid had already gotten at least that far, but he restrained himself from any comment.

_I mean, I've got my dad, who at first was reanimated—and that was weird enough! -–and now he's alive in some screwed up place where he doesn't even know I exist. _Naruto tugged at his hair in frustration. _The guy looks at me like I killed his best friend, and I didn't even do anything to him! What am I supposed to do about that? Now I actually have to deal with him. _Naruto turned toward the fox for the first time in hours. _How do you deal with your dad who should be dead and now isn't? Like, I don't know! I don't even know how to be a son! _He continued his aimless parade around the sewer._ Am I supposed to face him knowing that!? I just… And don't even get me started on Kakashi-sensei._

The fox hadn't planned on it, but it was obvious that the blonde had already prepared an hour long speech about the subject.

_He doesn't seem as bad, but what if I say something about him that I shouldn't know, and he tells Tou-chan, and then they both freak out because they think I'm an actual spy for someone I don't even know, and then Zetsu comes out and kills them, and I won't be able to do anything cause I'm stuck in a stupid seal that I can't break unless I feel like dying!_

_This is so messed up! Can't you undo it or something? You sound like you know what you're talking about with all this fuuinjutsu crap! I already know that I don't get it, tte bayo!_

Kurama slowly unfurled himself from his curled up position, stretching his back with a gaping yawn, his teeth glittering in the faint, gold shine of the water. **I can't undo any seal without being there physically. The only way I could even get close would be to instruct you on how to make a reverse-fuuinjustu complex, and I wouldn't trust you with something that complicated. Besides, there's no ink anywhere, and I highly doubt Kakashi is feeling nice today.**

_Why can't I just do a blood seal? _Naruto asked, nearing the end of his rope. He couldn't even think of being stuck as a prisoner when he _let_ them capture him.

The fox shook his head. **Your thumb is way too big to make something as detailed as that, and it still stands that you have no sealing experience whatsoever. And anyway, you're hands are a little…tied. **

Naruto groaned, more at the rejection than the pun. He sternly sat down against the wall. _So… we're stuck._

**More or less.** The fox watched his jinchuriki from the corner of his eye. He let him rest there for a few minutes in silence. It seemed that he'd let off most of his steam for now. **You feeling any better?**

Naruto gradually ripped his gaze from the wall in front of him. _A little. I'm surprised you care._

The sincerity of the environment instantly exploded into tiny bits. **I—I don't! I just didn't want you going out and getting yourself killed, baka! You die, I die, remember?** Kurama turned his back with a snuff, indignantly thrashing a tail against the ground to show his superiority.

_Oi, you can't just be nice, you overgrown cat!_

Kurama's eye twitched at the insult, his neck snapping toward the teenager across the sewer. **You dare offend me!? Tiny human**, he spat,** I'd love to see you try and take me.**

Naruto rose from his place on the floor. _I'd love to see the look on your face when I take a few of those tails as trophies._

The fox lashed another one of the named appendages on the watery abyss beneath himself, the impact sending a wave across the area that ate at the walls like poison. **You wouldn't dare…** He snorted a steam of smoke in the blonde's face when he brought his snout level with him.

_You ready to get your butt kicked in another Tug-of-War, kitten?_ Naruto rolled up his sleeves.

Kurama's face went blank for a moment, his ears twitching to the sides like a radar. **Not now, Naruto.**

_Oh, giving up that easi—_

The fox hushed him again, and the blonde complied tensely. After a few moments of silence, the tailed-beast explained, **You better get back. I think Kakashi's gone.**

Naruto flinched at the directness. For the past few minutes, he had completely forgotten about the fact that he was in some screwed up place where all he wanted to do was get out, and the statement was like a slap in the face. _Right_, he responded, not quite sure how he felt about what might be on the other side.

**Don't worry so much, baka,** Kurama reassured in a seemingly rude way as he spun himself back into a comfortable position on the floor. **It'll work out. Trust me. The Kyuubi no Kitsune is never wrong.**

Naruto smiled faintly. _He's been wrong about one thing before._ Kurama flinched in surprise. _He would totally lose in a tug-of war._

The fox grunted. **Get out of here, turd.**

* * *

"Oi. Oi. Oi. Oi. Oi. Oi."

Naruto's ears were practically bleeding from the high-pitched repetition. He snapped open his eyes, an unexpected ray of afternoon sunlight stabbing them until they adjusted. The same girl from before was sitting across from him a few meters away, listlessly trying to get his attention by saying the same word.

"Oi. Oi. Oi—"

"I'm up, I'm up! What do you want?"

The kid barely seemed astonished as she instantly moved onto the next activity of cracking her knuckles, the same strips of linen wrapped around her hands and forearms. "Just making sure you weren't dead or anything," she yawned loudly. "You haven't moved for the past hour."

Naruto moaned. "Well, if I was dead before, I'm alive now, tte bayo. Was that all you wanted?"

The girl shrugged and picked at her teeth with her nails. It seemed she couldn't sit still for two seconds, and Naruto watched her with bleak amusement. "Some entertainment would be nice, but you don't look like you've got anything to offer, so forget I asked."

**Annoying _and_ rude. Looks like you've got quite the guard, Naruto. Better enjoy it while you can**.

Naruto glowered. _You're enjoying this, aren't you?_ He would remember to polish up on some colorful swears for the nodding fox later.

"Oi. Oi—"

"What do you want from me, tte bayo?" Naruto erupted when she started up again. He hadn't even been gone for that long! The blonde hoped that hadn't been how he sounded when he was this girl's age.

As for her, she had already moved onto the task of retying her hair into a stubby ponytail, a bright strip of pink streaking along it. "Look, I don't really care about whatever happens to you in the long run, but if I'm gonna be stuck with you for the next few hours, I'd like to know your name."

The teenager practically died from shock at the question. Neither Minato nor Kakashi had even cared, and he could hardly believe the words had popped out of someone's mouth, albeit sandwiched between the mass of insults she had already dished out to him.

"N—Naruto," he stammered, still partially comatose from the bombshell.

"Naruto?" She let the name roll off her tongue sarcastically and swirled her pointer finger. "That's those thingies in ramen, right?"

He nodded, a piece of himself actually interested in where the conversation could go. Maybe this girl could help him out a little when it came to his sensei and father…

"Pfft, what a stupid alias," she yawned again, stretching her arms above her head.

…or maybe not.

"Hey, ramen is one of the greatest things in the whole world! I love my name!" the blonde opposed in a calmed rage.

"Whatever you say, loser. I'd still rather be named after something cool, like a sword or…anything other than ramen."

Naruto would have thrown his shoe at her were his arms not tied together. Now that he thought about it, he was really missing the silence that Kakashi offered, even if it was an awkward one. Temporarily defeated, he reclined back against the large tree behind him with a sigh. He hadn't really given it much thought, but the bark behind him seemed rough enough to rip through the rope if he tried.

Kurama voiced his disagreement in a glance. **Don't forget about the seal.**

Naruto frowned. Never mind then.

"Hey, baka," the same girl interrupted. "You better get some sleep. We've got some traveling to do tomorrow, and if you drop dead on the road, we're not gonna stop for you."

The teenager recoiled. Traveling? He was going to get even further from Zetsu that way, further from his chance at getting home. Who knew where they were going or why? He wished that he at least knew who the heck the "they" was in this equation. If he knew someone's name, he could at least have a starting point, and if he could find where he began, it couldn't be that much harder to find where he should end.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Yeah, nothing really important has happened at all. :/ Sorry, guys. I need a good base for this story, but I promise that it'll pick up eventually as more and more is explained.

If it doesn't say it's discontinued, it's not, so please follow and review :3

Minatochan2


	4. Where the Line Lies

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto. :/

* * *

**Chapter 4:** Where the Line Lies

_He was walking in a desert. The night sky reflected dimly on the white sand, the ground a sea of blinking stars in the twilight, and the bitter wind swept up the pearly grains in a stream of cutting razors that broke his flesh. Naruto remembered this place. He was outside of Suna, the faint memory of the Kazekage rescue mission as tangible as the sand. This place was not familiar just because of that, however. He'd been in this same setting before, the colorless sand, the vast sky, the unbearable loneliness. _

_He didn't know what force pushed his feet forward, but for some reason, he continued to walk along the plain toward the black drapery of the horizon. To be honest, he wanted nothing more than to lie on that cold, desert floor and marvel at the eternal breadth of the sky above him. But his feet continued to move against his will. He was merely watching from his own eyes, powerless to stop. The goal of reaching the end of the barren region was impossible. After all, he'd been there before, been forced to walk that same path, been forced to wait and gaze brokenly at what he could only dream of touching._

_The dancing of the sand around him was the only thing that graced his ears. His heart felt corroded in the agonizing silence, but he refused to weep over something so trivial. He had already lived through that same isolation, that same emptiness, that same quiet. A second time would not be as hard, at least, he prayed. _

_The familiarity of the scenario was suddenly shattered as he noticed something in the distance, the shadow clashing painfully against the backdrop of the white desert. His heart skipped a beat in panic. He felt that he should have rejoiced at the thought of something, possibly _someone_, there, enduring the same suffering, but instead, he found that he was horrified at the unexpected change. Before, he had comfort in the idea that he understood exactly what was going to occur. He'd had the same dream thousands of times, after all. The splintering of that brought him only terror as he found himself quickening his pace. _

Don't go there_, he wanted to tell himself. _Just keep aiming for the horizon that you can never reach! That dream will keep you safe! Don't change it; don't change course!

_His cries went unnoticed, much to his horror. _

_The wavering figure began to become more defined, the rectangular shape clarifying the closer he got. Before his mind could process what was happening, he was in front of it. A door._

_Naruto studied the foreigner for a moment, unsure as to whether or not he should unlock what was behind it. His mind was now screaming for himself not to. _Keep walking! You don't know what's behind there! Maybe it will hurt, maybe it will kill, maybe you won't come back out alive!

_His hand moved against his will, hovering over the blackness of the doorknob that had swiftly materialized. The coolness felt alien against his skin when his fingers glazed the top._

_The audience of sand had since fallen quiet, watching, waiting, anticipating. Naruto himself was one of them. The siren of his mind was now shrieking, any calmness since vanishing into the undecipherable pleas. His heart and chest were being strangled under the icy gaze of the door. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't feel. Inside, he was tearing himself apart, unable to decide whether he should continue. Couldn't he just stay where he was, watching the sky pass him by into the morning that he knew would never come? He thought the sand would've looked beautiful in that light. Perhaps it would have color. Perhaps it would sparkle with something other than that lonely sky._

_His blood froze in his veins as he agonizingly twisted the knob. It clicked when it had unlocked, the shrill noise edging on his shaking limbs. _

_He was crying for himself to stop. He didn't have the power to prevent what was going to happen, he knew that much, but the panic was overwhelming him, and he'd have done anything to make that feeling cease. It felt like an eternity since he had had that power, had any influence on what happened around him or, at least, what he himself did._

_On the other side, he could hear someone else. He hadn't realized it at first, but now that he had, it was the most familiar sound he had ever heard in all his life, whether it be dream or memory, genjustsu or reality. Someone was crying._

_The need to save this person invaded his thoughts, a planted emotion of this dream world. He knew it wasn't what he felt— all he felt was the pain and horror and unbelievable sorrow— but it still over-ruled all others in some twisted dictatorship. And it had dictated. _

Open it.

_The sound of the turning doorknob had merely been a precursor of what the door would sound like. Its hinges released a demonic screech, and Naruto recoiled as the sound bombarded his ears. All he wanted to do was run and never turn back, but his hand was glued to the handle, unable and unwilling to relinquish it. _

_A dark chill escaped from the scant room the door had swung open. Naruto inched it further, the blackness of the desert night like a floodlight in comparison to the darkness of this new area. He didn't want to open it, to see the face behind those tears, but his body was still unresponsive, and he horrifyingly watched as he saw—_

* * *

**Naruto awoke with **a start, his lungs choking on the last bits of the dream. He reached for his throat in a fruitless attempt to ease his breathing, but it only made it more difficult. He couldn't see, and there were no sounds to hear. The thought of the door reentered his mind. Maybe he'd fallen in and was trapped forever. He couldn't tell, and the panic left over was refueled by a new rush of adrenaline. His clothes were damp with sweat, the fabric clinging to his skin helplessly, and a tinge of pain echoed from his wrists, but the discomfort went unnoticed. He couldn't tell where he was. He needed to know that. A hand was on his shoulder, and he could hear someone speaking to him, but none of it mattered. What if it was that person? What if they were still crying those same tears? If he couldn't run from that door, he at least wanted to know that he could have done something to help them.

The teenager collapsed into himself for a few minutes. Kurama would have told him, "You won't be of any use to anyone the way things are." And he would be right. He needed to calm down, even if it was just a little. His entire body was still shaking, and he was struggling to convince himself to stay still, the need to move somehow overpowering his physical self. Naruto gained back some of his strength after awhile, believing himself in a fit enough state to think about things outside of himself.

The chains, the darkness, the winter wind that still slipped through the wall to his back. He recognized it all; he was back in that same, Godforsaken cell. Something was incredibly different though, something that was so horribly wrong that he figured he must have been under another genjutsu.

_'A hand was on his shoulder'. _

He distantly reached up to make sure that he understood, to clarify what his gut was telling him. Feminine fingers were resting softly on his back, silently asking if he was alright. Naruto blinked away the shock. He muffled his alarmed breathing so that he could hear himself think.

A person was here with him. It was strange to think of that as an abnormality, but the thought seemed like a mirage in that same, white desert.

He turned his sight to where he figured that person would be, struggling to form words. He realized that he had forgotten how to start a conversation with someone. It had been such a long time….

Luckily, the mysterious person, who seemed just as new to this as he was, brought up a passable opening. "You okay?"

Naruto felt his cheeks flush with heat. Seeing him having an episode was not the best way to be introduced. "Y—yeah. I'm fine, thanks." He couldn't remember feeling more alien in his entire life.

The person's smooth voice sounded female, but the slow and exhausted flow of her words came off as much older. He still found himself wondering what she looked like, even though he was more grateful for the dialogue than he could express. She had probably been a very beautiful woman before she wound up here. Another question posed itself: how_ had_ she gotten here?

Outside of his thoughts, the women continued speaking. "That's good to hear. I'm sorry if I scared you. No one's ever left me with someone else before. I, myself, was quite shocked. Well, I still am." She laughed lightly, instantly making Naruto's disposition light up with a smile. The muscles felt sore from misuse, but grinning helped make the panic of his dream dissolve completely. Even if it was just a genjutsu, he guiltily wished that it wouldn't end.

The lady had continued to talk beside him, chattering in a tired but cheeky whisper as if she were a student skipping class for the first time. Naruto hung dazedly on every word. A whirl of fresh air from the outside had seemingly whipped through his lungs at the trivial and casual talk she proposed.

He noticed distantly that she left out any important information. The teenager couldn't blame her though. Who knows what type of information could be used against them? And besides, she could be a spy, or she could have thought that he was one. A prison complex was not exactly the best place to tell your life's story, even to an inmate. Instead, he concentrated on the sweetness of another person's presence and voice. He could have been lulled to sleep by the sounds he had been deprived of if she hadn't directed a question toward him.

"How long have you been here?"

The blonde poked a finger at himself, hastily letting it drop once he realized that she couldn't have seen it anyway. "Me?"

"Yeah. I mean, just take a guess. How long do you think?"

Naruto settled back against the wall. He had never really given the idea much consideration. The teenager scratched the side of his face in thought before answering, recalling the frosty sting behind his back. "I got here around early winter, so it's probably only been a month or two. It feels like forever though."

The woman hummed gravely, her voice fading into the walls, hardly louder than a gentle murmur. "You're so young too…"

Naruto shifted in his seat under the sudden onset of the unwelcome quiet. "What about you?" he inquired, feeling inclined to keep the flame of their conversation going. It was becoming easier and easier to talk, the unease of the first few minutes vanishing without a trace.

"That's a hard one to answer." The person seemed lost in a dream for a moment, and Naruto almost began to regret asking anything at all. Suddenly, she swallowed hard. "I used to keep track of time based on the shifts the guards made, but after awhile, I began to question my own numbers and gave up. I could have fallen asleep and missed one. Perhaps one guard had to pull two shifts? I drove myself mad with the need to know just a bit of what was going on outside, but all it did was leave me more lost in the end." The blonde could hear her fiddling with her clothing before she continued. "I suppose it must've been a long time by now. But the only thing I have to show for it is some new wrinkles and longer hair." She chuckled drily.

Naruto inched closer, hoping that she could see the faked hope in his eyes. "I'm sure the both of us will get out of this somehow."

Her voice purred again, pleased by the thought of something other than darkness. "When that happens, you'll have to find me. I'm dying to know what you really look like."

The blonde beamed at the thought. She was nice. He hoped that he'd see her again. "Meet for ramen?"

He figured that the woman must have nodded. "Ramen," she agreed, gently resting a hand on the top of his head. Naruto could've gotten lost in the warmth of the touch, but he noticed something painfully obvious.

She wasn't in shackles.

Naruto couldn't tell if his heart had suddenly started pumping ice or if it had stopped altogether.

Genjutsu.

When the woman removed her hand and relaxed back against the wall, he didn't even have the will to move. He should have learned by then, and he hated himself for being so stupidly foolish. He couldn't trust anyone, let alone himself.

_"Fools can't survive in this world," Jiraiya had said with clear conviction. _

Naruto gradually forced himself to gulp down the intense feelings twisting in the pit of his stomach and pressed his back into the cool stones behind himself. He hadn't learned anything, anything at all. So this was just as real as his dream; this didn't exist. All he had were the memories that situated him here. Again, he found himself asking, begging to know where reality had split. The woman beside him had fallen silent, seemingly soaking up the company, and Naruto decided that he would just have to stick through the pain until the jutsu wore off.

He returned to anxiously chewing on the skin of his thumb, letting the bad habit return just this once. He needed the familiarity of the motion as another wave of worry collapsed on his shoulders. It was silent.

* * *

**The next three** weeks of his capture passed by in a similar fashion. Kakashi would wake him up in the morning and remove the thick rope around him, retying another strip around his wrists in a way that he couldn't make any hand signs. It's not like he would have tried, that seal on his arm made sure of that, but he could understand the skepticism somewhat. If he had been the one to capture someone he didn't recognize, he wouldn't have been as welcoming either. And besides, the silver-haired shinobi had gradually begun to crack, even if it was just a little. If Naruto was lucky, he could get multiple sentences out of the man, and that was enough to pacify him. Kurama made for enough conversation anyway, and it seemed someone else had more than enough to say.

"Ehhh, are we there yet?" the hazel-haired girl groaned, tossing her head back like she would die if she had to take another step.

"We haven't even gone three miles yet," Kakashi drawled, shifting the weight of his backpack along his shoulders. The man was always more than patient on the road. Naruto had never noticed it back in his own world, but Kakashi practiced the tolerance of a god, a quality he had begun to admire. He, himself, had thought about trying to make an escape just so these guys would end his life, which had begun to consist mainly of the girl's monologues. The thought that Kakashi and the others had undergone this for even longer was a scary idea.

"But it feels like we've been walking for hours," she continued to mutter, toying with a paper bomb. "When's Ken-chan coming? I need to make someone feel stupid."

Kakashi shot a look toward Minato, who was in the lead. "It has been awhile. You don't think they were caught by Iwa, do you?"

The blonde man shook his head, not bothering to glance back. "Doubt it. Those two'll look out for one another. Besides, it was a personal mission for intel, and I don't think Kenta would get caught with something as precious as that." The blonde brushed a stray plant out of his way. They were in a forest completely filled with bamboo and other vegetation, and the group followed a shallow trail tread into the floor, the path barely visible in the darkness. Naruto had quickly learned that morning meant late at night in their language as any trip was done between the darkest part of twilight until just after sunset.

Naruto frowned, wrestling with this new name. He'd heard of someone by that title before, even though he couldn't quite remember where.

He turned toward the young girl, deciding to throw all discreteness out the window, earning a dangerous look from Kakashi. "Who's this Kenta guy?"

She folded her arms behind her head, closing her eyes cockily. "Eh, he's a weenie. I'm way manlier than he is."

**That's always good to know**, Kurama observed sarcastically.

The teenager grimaced in annoyance, heaving a sigh as he rotated back to the front. He just couldn't get a straight answer from these people, could he? If he was going to be stuck here, he'd at least like to have some footing, and Naruto was all too eagerly refused any at all.

Kakashi, who had been positioned exactly behind him, had begun to drift closer to the green-eyed girl (no doubt to catch her in anticipation that she might spill something vital to their group). Naruto noticed this with faint amusement, ignoring the small boy who trotted not far behind. _No matter where he is, it seems sensei's stuck baby-sitting someone_. Kurama snorted in concurrence.

The teenager returned his attention forward, allowing the mystery of this Kenta to dissolve in exchange for a much larger one. Namikaze Minato. The man was an enigma if Naruto had ever seen one, and he'd met many people before that he didn't understand at all. He felt like he was watching a brick with legs. The guy would only say as much as was necessary, do as much as was necessary. His face was a mask of passive authority; he was nothing at all like the person Naruto had come to know as his father.

As much as he really could have cared less, Naruto couldn't help but be annoyed with him. It was nice to know a little bit about what made a person tick, what made them happy, what made them sad, and what confused them more than anything in the entire world. Any and all of those answers evaded his grasp, and he found himself craving them even more like a child who saw that someone else had a toy he didn't know he even wanted. He wondered what could have gone so wrong that the famed Yondaime Hokage had become nothing more than a veil that hid all of his emotions.

Naruto had more important things to worry about, however. He held his breath in irritation. Black Zetsu must have been long gone by then, possibly returning back to Kaguya or sticking around for the show. He was at a loss as to what the guy was up to, and Kurama was still meditating on theories that he must not have felt like sharing yet. Naruto had grown so used to controlling what happened around him that taking a backseat and getting swept up in a current he was powerless to influence was another thing that frustrated him to no end. He hated every second of it.

The blonde was kicked out of his contemplation by that same girl. "Taichou*, why are we keeping this loser around anyway? We could go so much faster if we didn't have all this dead weight."

Naruto seethed at the description but wanted an answer as well. He had half-expected for someone to put a kunai in his back with all the tension surrounding him and his position, but no one had done much other than ask him questions that they wouldn't believe the answers to regardless.

Minato craned his neck backwards, a motion that was revolutionary for the static leader. "I'll tell you later, Aki. I've got my reasons." His voice was as cold and flat as possible, but it didn't keep both teenagers from looking as if they wanted to shoot him with a stream of curses. Kurama would have to suffice as an audience as Naruto stampeded inside the familiar sewer. "Have you come up with any ideas?" he finally ended, gesturing wildly.

The fox watched one of his paws in minute interest and responded, **I've got a few. All of them still lead to us staying here for awhile longer. I'm curious as to what your Tou-chan's got in store. This is a very unusual predicament.** The blonde didn't agree with that statement at all but channeled some of his agitation into a large exhale. Ero-sennin had always reminded him that his temper was one of his worst assets. Getting upset hadn't changed anything in the past few weeks, and he figured that it wouldn't any time soon.

Outside, the area had grown absurdly quiet without Aki's constant talking. She seemed satisfied with counting the amount of explosives she had on her, and everyone aside from the constantly nonchalant Minato seemed to relax in the peaceful silence.

* * *

Naruto shifted his feet uncomfortably on the ground. The day had gone by fairly painlessly, and now he was back to being tied to a tree while Kakashi stood guard. He was oddly still, even for the lackadaisical shinobi that he was. It made the atmosphere seem heavy with intensity, and the blonde couldn't help but express it in his behavior. And so, he continued to shuffle his feet against the soil, not daring to look at the shinobi across from him. He could remember the man in a serious mood from back when he was younger, and the feral look in his eyes had been enough to scare him to death. Even though Kakashi's mood had not crossed that threshold yet, the thought of it still perturbed the teenager. His sensei had never become solemn about much, and this Kakashi seemed to resemble the one he knew almost exactly.

"Yo," the man greeted a new-comer.

Naruto tore his eyes from a blade of grass to meet with similar blue ones a few meters away. _Tou-chan?_ The teenager stared on in total confusion. What was he doing here? Was that why Kakashi had been so grave? He hoped not, his heart skipping a beat.

The Yellow Flash dismissed Kakashi after a brief exchange, and the two were left alone. Naruto wished that he could have dissolved into the bark against his back when the man's empty eyes shifted to him. He had hardly said more than a few sentences the entirety of the past three weeks, all of them being questions or orders, and the sudden attention was uninvited in the least.

The adult made his way over to him, squatting down a fair distance away. Minato let the silence embitter the air before making any sound. "You do understand how big of a mess you're in, do you not?"

A question. Although the inquiries had been driving Naruto up the wall, he couldn't help but feel relieved. He forced himself to make a weak nod, a terrible disagreement of how he was really feeling, but he figured that shaking his head wasn't much of an option.

Minato plucked an herb from the ground, twirling it in his fingers as he talked. "I'd hope so. You're up to your neck in it by now."

Naruto didn't know whether he should comment or wait for the shinobi to continue, so he retreated back to make sure Kurama was listening. Sure enough, the demon was paying attention to everything, watching through his omniscient, crimson irises as the scene unfolded.

"This is the big leagues. Don't you dare think for a second that I won't kill you if you slip up. If you follow orders, don't ask questions, and do as you're told, I won't have to do that, do you understand?" Naruto nodded. The man in front of him was not the type of shinobi to be messed with anyway. If his ruthless reputation wasn't enough to make the teenager have a slight fear for him, a separate fact did.

The ghost of the early-autumn sun flickered across the blonde's hitai-ate, a deadly reminder of something Naruto had found out the second day of his capture. Wherever they were going, it wasn't Konoha.

* * *

*Taichou: Captain

* * *

**Author's Note:**

…yay.

For one, Naruto's entire time with Team-AU-Minato-ness is all in his flashbacks while the present-Naruto is stuck in the genjutsu-ridden prison. Sorry if that's been confusing to follow. And, yes, all of the OCs in this fic play an important role in this story that none of you would know yet, so please, bear with me on them — I know they're a pain. *brick'd*

If it doesn't say it's discontinued, it's not, so please follow and leave a review. I've been so thrilled with the feedback I've been getting so far ;OMO;

Minatochan2


	5. Contingent

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto…I know. Here comes the depression/denial.

* * *

**Chapter 5:** Contingent

It had been days since that conversation, and the group hadn't moved at all. Visits from Kakashi—or anyone for that matter— had become infrequent luxuries, much to Naruto's surprise. Weren't prisoners always supposed to be guarded? He glowered in annoyance. Minato's swift and grave dialogue was the last time anyone had given him the light of day. The teenager wasn't sure whether that was a good or bad thing, and he sorely missed talking to anyone. Even Kurama seemed to be taking the day off, napping constantly. Naruto figured that maybe he should also be thinking, planning,_ anything_, but that seemed to be all he had been doing, and he was itching for some action. He figured that he must have thought of any and every answer to all the questions he could be asked. The extensive planning seemed strange, but again, it really was the single thing he could occupy his time with.

He rubbed the soles of his zori on the grass beneath him, making a trail of soil where his feet had been. The bottoms were completely worn out, he noticed with a frown, the treads flattened from all of the running he had been doing both during the war and in this, weird world. Now that he thought about it, he wished he had a change of clothes; his tattered, orange attire lacked any luster that it might have had before. The cheery color had dissolved to a rusty brown, and Naruto missed the brightness of how it used to be.

Speaking of attire, his mind couldn't help but travel to his hitai-ate. The absence of the headband from his forehead was one of the reasons for his restlessness. After all, a headband stated where your home lay and, more importantly, spoke volumes about who you were as a shinobi, your values, your integrity, your resolve. He would hate if something awful had befallen his most prized possession, but telling his captors that fact would only have secured its fate. Naruto was sure that he would have mentioned it had he not had all this time to think.

And that train of thought led him right back to the main riddle that had been plaguing his mind: who exactly was he dealing with? It was a vicious mental cycle, pondering one, trivial thing and somehow ending up on the biggest problem possible, which tended to be either Zetsu or the Yellow Flash's rag-tag group.

Naruto groaned at the immenseness of the question, leaning back until his spine was being prodded by the rigid bark of a tree. None of the others he'd been tied to had left nearly as many splinters, and the rope was tied even tighter than usual, pinning him to his newfound enemy. He might as well have been stuck to a twine of barbed wire.

Naruto corrected his mistake and arched his back away from the tree, letting his mind drift away again once he had checked his surroundings for any other entertainment to no avail.

Who _was_ he dealing with?

It seemed all of the Hidden Villages had been crossed off the table in one swoop— quite literally. The deep line through the Konohagakure insignia had proven that if nothing else had already. The only other group Naruto had met with such hitai-ate was the Akatsuki, and they wouldn't have been nearly as merciful as Kakashi and the others had been so far. But rebel shinobi? Kakashi? The Yondaime?

Even though the other two people he had seen didn't have any headbands at all, Konoha's Copy-nin and Yellow Flash were not people to be messed with. It was a problem, a definite problem. He was sure that answers would only make more questions, but that logic was shoved to the side as Naruto found himself asking them all anyway. It wouldn't have been that difficult to make a list with the amount that were presenting themselves.

Not Iwa. Not Kumo. Not Kiri. Not Suna… Not Konoha.

Not enemies— at least, from what he could tell. Not allies. Not. Not. Not.

Everything was a mystery, and thinking about it made Naruto's head ache from the strain. Physically, he felt like the most exhausted thing on the face of the Earth, and the sting of the tree behind couldn't drive him from the overwhelming need to sleep.

* * *

Naruto blinked the haze from his eyes when he felt something wet against his cheek. His mind was too jumbled to process everything at once, but he did understand one thing: there was a dog sitting in his lap. It nipped at his hand and made a move to lick him again.

"I'm up. I'm up," he yawned groggily, leaning his face away from the pooch. The dog barked sharply and nibbled on his hand again. "Whaddyou want?" the blonde grumbled. "I was having a good dream for once." His head swiveled in the dog's direction, his tired eyes barely taking in the pup.

Long, dark ears dangled from the sides of his hazel head, tipped off with two, squinted eyes. If it hadn't been for the obvious blue vest with a scrawl of characters on the back, Naruto would have thought it an ordinary hound, especially when considering the lack of a hitai-ate, but the blonde instantly recognized the dog.

"One of Kakashi's nin-ken?" he drawled, wishing he could wipe the sleep from his face. "What are you doing here?" The blonde took a moment to check the area. No one else was around, and the morning air told him that they were not going to be doing any traveling that day. "Did they send you to keep guard? Ha, how thoughtful."

"Don't get smart. I'd hate to have to lick you again."

Naruto would have jumped five feet in the air had he not been tied to a tree. He forgot the dog could talk! Then again, the uncanny human voice didn't lessen his surprise any. "I—sorry," he apologized lamely, tilting away from the pup that was now threateningly close.

The canine seemed satisfied with the response and jumped down to the ground to scratch behind his ears. He snapped his jaw with a yawn. "Well, just don't go anywhere. I don't feel like killing anyone today."

"Sorry to be a burden, but it wasn't my goal to be taken prisoner either, datte bayo," Naruto snuffed indignantly.

The dog settled onto his back a few steps away. "Surprised no one's killed you yet. With an attitude like that…"

"You're the second person to tell me that. Are captives really that rare?"

Naruto's companion fell silent on that question, and the blonde couldn't suppress the need to ask something else. The nin-ken had made for pretty active conversation so far, something he hadn't been able to achieve in awhile, and Naruto was beginning to understand how to get some information without being suspicious. He rested back against his binds, ignoring the prick of the forgotten trunk behind him. "Where's Kakashi? I think I liked him better."

"What? I'm not good enough?" the hound snapped, rolling onto his stomach, wrinkling his clothing.

Naruto managed to hide his smirk and glanced off to the side in a bored imitation. "You'll have to do I guess." He shrugged. "You can't be too picky with guards you know."

The dog watched him from his narrowed pupils, his brow twitching with the need to respond. "Kakashi won't be back till later tonight," he finally caved. "So get used to me being here, brat."

**Learning quick, eh, kid? **Kurama growled with a satisfied smile, laying his head on his crossed wrists.

Naruto beamed. _Maybe just a little._

**Well, learn faster. You're still tied up.**

The blonde's face fell into a scowl. _I thought you were actually going to be nice today._

**Not a chance.**

"Hey, kid."

Naruto 's mind traveled back to the nin-ken. "Hn?"

"Don't go zoning off like that. You're creeping me out." The dog shifted his weight onto his side, his closed eyes still pointing accusingly in the teenager's direction. Naruto had half a mind to tell him off, but he managed to channel his irritation into a glare.

So something was up like he thought. A dog, even a trained one, wasn't exactly ideal for a lookout, and the period the teenager had been left unguarded was a huge tip off. _They must be spread out pretty thin for whatever it is they're up to._

The blonde was wondering whether or not he would risk the added suspicion and ask the nin-ken for some more hints, but the dog beat him to the punch. "Kid, how long've you been here?"

"How the heck should I know?" Naruto remarked jadedly. He probably could've said the answer of three or four weeks, which he was pretty sure was the time, but he decided to play his "innocent prisoner" card a little while longer. Besides, his count could've been wrong anyway.

"You don't have to get snippy. I was just asking a question. Thought you would be used to them by now."

Naruto inspected the blueness of the sky above. Midday. It felt like it was taking forever for time to pass. "I've had too many questions. That's the problem." He lurched forward with a groan.

The dog's head jerked at the statement before he settled back down in the grass. "The problem's probably because you complain too much, kid."

"I do not, tte bayo! And stop calling me 'kid'!"

**He got you there. I always thought nin-ken were dumber than bricks, but I like this one.**

Naruto folded his arms with a pout. _You just like him cause he hates me, Kurama._

The fox didn't argue with that statement, snickering quietly. **Maybe you're on to something.**

Naruto angrily blew a stray bang out of his eyes. It was quickly decided that he liked people more than animals, trained or not. The blonde glanced between the reclined nin-ken and the bijuu. He might as well have been in a petting zoo.

He returned to scuffing the dirt beneath his feet, struggling to keep himself entertained. The most eventful thing seemed to be the dog in front of him, and he was pretty sure that he must've either fallen asleep or was a great actor. _I had to get captured by rebel shinobi. Out of all the people in the world. _

Kurama followed his jinchuriki's mental pacing with a bored look. **Stop being so ungrateful. You could be dead.**

_I'm not being ungrateful!_ Naruto grumbled. _I'm just saying. Nothing ever seems to happen, and if it continues like that, I swear I'll die of boredom._

**You're such a child.**

_Nu-uh. Unlike a certain someone, I can't stand napping all day._

**That's called being a child**, Kurma repeated, resting his cheek on the back of his claws.

_Whatever, datte bayo. _The blonde threw up his hands. _I'm gonna go be productive and find a way to get out of here._

**Yeah, good luck with that. I'll be in here laughing at your failures.**

Naruto decided to make a quick exit before he got in another quarrel with the fox, but he found himself in the same spot: tied to a tree with a nin-ken passed out practically within kicking distance. It was always the same. Naruto sucked in a deep breath, holding the fiery air in his lungs before finally releasing it and settling down to think. He already knew he couldn't move too much with the rope being fixed as tight as it was as he had tried to wriggle free another time. _No, that's not gonna work._

**Still laughing I'll have you know.**

_You're not helping, Kurama!_

**I'm not here to help.**

Naruto mentally stuck his tongue out. The momentary defeat tasted worse when the fox was proved right. He ran through everything he could think of, and he still couldn't find any way to out. And besides, there was only one reason a nin-ken would feel so relaxed while on guard.

The teenager leaned back and immediately felt a prick nipping at his shoulder. "This stupid tree!" he snapped angrily, craning his head to cuss the thing out when he realized a piece of rope pinned to a shard of the bark. He batted his eyes at the opportunity before carefully twisting his shoulder beside the cord.

Kurama seemed slightly disappointed at the success. **So you caught a break. Don't screw it up, turd. **

"I'm not gonna screw it up," Naruto muttered to himself as he cautiously shifted his arm up and down in the hope of sawing the rope. Sure enough, the bark suited as a blade, agonizingly slicing one thread of the line at a time. The blonde spared a glance to his guard, who seemed as relaxed as possible, but his squinted eyes were hard to decipher as active or asleep. He took the assumption that he hadn't yet been found out and continued, nearly half of the rope dissolving into the wood.

As Naruto quickly discovered, whenever it seemed like things were taking a turn for the better, something else always had to come and ruin everything. In this case, everything collapsed in a matter of seconds. The entire forest shook, raining leaves and loose branches in a shower of chaos followed by a massive, earsplitting boom that created a layer of free topsoil that fogged the atmosphere. Naruto coughed as the dust subsided, wishing he could wave a hand in front of his face to clear the air, but a more important problem presented itself as a kunai sliced through the smog and landed centimeters from his feet. He flinched slightly at the directness and glanced ahead as another poof of smoke erupted from where the nin-ken had disappeared, a separate knife embedding itself where the pup had been situated. The blonde quickly spared a look to the scrap of rope hidden beside his shoulder. It was almost cut completely, but he needed at least another few seconds in order for it to be ripped off by force.

He tore his eyes away from the thread as three, masked shinobi alighted before him. Naruto was practically speechless by the sudden occurrences, almost coming too fast for him to even comprehend, but he forced himself to pay attention to every detail of what was happening around him. There was no mistaking the white vests and the flaming black swirl of a tattoo on their shoulders.

_Konoha ANBU?_

"They took a prisoner," one with a bear mask stated flatly. The vibe was completely wrong, a small shiver running along the teenager's spine at the presence of the operatives. They certainly weren't friendly.

Naruto distantly pressed his shoulder closer to the twine around him, a small prick of blood escaping as his skin scraped the bark. Just a little longer….

A glitter of metal flashed near his throat, wielded by one of the younger looking ANBU. "Who are you?"

Naruto felt slightly livid as the muffled question exited the mask, the sass sinking into his response. "Naruto. What's it to you?" The blade glinted in his eyes.

"Panther. No survivors. Those are the orders," Bear averred, signaling to the third group member beside him.

"Hai."

The two dispersed in a shunshin, leaving their teammate alone. A small stretch of silence pervaded the atmosphere as the two teenagers waited for one to make a move. Naruto gradually began to grow more and more confused. _Why hasn't this kid killed me yet? I mean, it's not a bad thing, but…_

**Naruto, you've got a one-on-one fight right now. If he's having problems, it'll only tip things more in your favor. **

_Yeah. _The blonde could feel the cord getting thinner and thinner as he prayed that his alternative motive would be kept hidden for awhile longer. He could feel the tension tighten to a tangible level, and the kunai wavered unsurely a breath away from his face.

He could feel the last thread release, the pressure of the atmosphere snapping along with the rope. Against Kurama's advice to take some time to plan, Naruto whipped into action, pinning the blade between his open palms and twirling it until the stunned ANBU was on his back. The boy was about to launch a counter attack, readying himself as quickly as he was allowed, but his speed failed to match his opponent as a swift but clear blow was dealt to his neck.

_Well, that wasn't too hard_, Naruto chirped to the lazy fox, slightly surprised himself. The kid didn't even seem like he had it in him to kill anyone, and he couldn't help but feel slightly bad for him. Naruto almost wanted to sneak a peek under his mask. Another blast quickly reminded him that there were less trivial things to worry about. He would have to be content with remembering the crazy brown hair and the red mask.

Naruto quickly snatched up the remains of the rope and a few of the kunai scattered on the ground, scanning the area quickly. It seemed fairly restful aside from the occasional explosion from further away, perhaps a mile or two.

_Zetsu. Zetsu. Right…where is he? _

**Naruto, you still have that seal on you**, Kurama sighed. **There's no point in asking me.**

The blonde casually glanced down to his right arm. He had nearly forgotten about the darned thing; the rope had seemed more important than anything else. And besides, the thrill of finally being unbound was so addictive. He could have melted in the openness and freedom he had been craving for what felt like an eternity. There was no time for those things, though, as Naruto found himself sprinting as fast as he could to get as far away as possible. He needed to be out of reach. Then, he could think of a plan. The fuuinjutsu problem would just have to wait until later.

There was another matter that was ramming harder and harder against his forehead. Where to go? It was one of the worst feelings in the world, not knowing where you were. Jiraiya and he had been lost plenty of times during their years of traveling, but they had always been able to ask for directions after the customary hour of frustrated grumbling and map decoding. Here, it seemed that there were only two types of people: someone who wanted to kill him and someone who wanted to enslave him. Naruto scowled. His previous luck was quickly running out.

The teenager glanced up through the forest canopy at the blue sky. A few columns of billowing smoke sprouted into the air in the distance. His frown deepened.

**Brat, I know what you're thinking, and I don't like it.**

_You said it yourself, Kurama. We can't undo the seal, and besides, I could get captured by worse people._

**Those are both true, but maybe you should try using your head for once, you dope.**

Naruto growled, leaning against an isolated boulder in annoyance. Why did it have to be so hard to get home? He glanced back to those same pillars of smoldering ash, feeling a mixture of dull guilt and intense curiosity. He still had no idea where he was going, and that was the only direction that stuck out like a sore thumb. Naruto ran a hand through his hair. _Kurama._

**Don't even say it. I already know where this is going.**

_Hey, it's not that bad of an idea. I can't go to a paranoid Konoha without my hitai-ate. And anyway, I could always break out if things don't work._

**Sure, beat off Kakashi and the Yondaime with a piece of rope and some kunai. **Kurama rolled his eyes and buried his face in his arms.

_I'm sure I could handle Kakashi at least, tte bayo_, the blonde grumbled._ And I'm not gonna get that close. Just go find out what's going on from a distance. Any info would help right now. We've got about as much intel on this place as Lee does old age._

**Whatever. As long as you don't get caught, **the fox subsided carelessly.

Naruto straightened himself, twirling a kunai around his finger. _Of course not! This is Uzumaki Naruto you're talking to, after all!_

* * *

**Author's Note:**

*facepalms* Ugh, worst place to end a chapter. This was meant to be way longer, but it really didn't happen. Sorry, guys oNo" A

If it doesn't say it's discontinued, it's not, so please follow and review. :)

Minatochan2


	6. Pin Drop

**Disclaimer:** Don't own it, just write it. :p

Note: Aki is an OC. Yep.

* * *

**Chapter 6:** Pin Drop

It was a crazy thought, but Naruto really wished something would just blow up already to tell him where to go. Everything had grown uncomfortably silent in the past few minutes, an abrupt and unpleasant change. Quiet didn't do much to ease his tensed nerves, but then again, when did it ever?

The teenager was perched up in a tree a few dozen meters away from the last explosion, casually running through his next move. Getting into that tree had been a nearly impossible task (something he was embarrassed about not being able to do without difficultly), and he could only guess how hard it would be to fight off anyone if he was cornered by either the Konoha ANBU (at least, that's the only group that came to mind) or his previous captors.

"Troublesome," he muttered while he absentmindedly tapped his fist on the trunk beside him. Well, he'd come too far to back out by then, so he cautiously slipped across the intertwining branches of oaks and bamboo stalks in the hopes of making some headway without being intercepted. The blonde hadn't run into anyone so far and wanted to keep it that way.

It wasn't long before that luck ran out, and he stumbled across a few masked shinobi. They were different from the entourage he had met before— in more ways than one. Naruto managed to hop down to ground level, ignoring the minor streak of discomfort in his legs, and vigilantly made his way over to them after giving the area a quick scan. The swift slashes across their torsos told of a quick end, and the deepness of the wounds shared that the weapon had been a kunai. Naruto cupped his chin, tilting his head to the side. Something was off about them though. It looked almost like there had been three different kunai at once…

His head snapped to the side as a short yelp from nearby interrupted his thought process. It wasn't from that far away.

Kurama flashed one red eye.

Just recon. Just recon, Naruto reassured. Kurama snorted but, once again, didn't argue.

The blonde made a quick turn to where he had heard the noise, ready to bolt off to the rescue, before he noticed something: he didn't have any weapons. Naruto scrunched up his face in distaste. He was as good as a dead man in this situation with a crap-level of chakra and nothing to defend himself with. As bad as he felt about it, he took a few kunai from the fallen shinobi next to him, trying to keep himself from glancing at the stunned eyes that peeked through their masks. They hadn't seen death coming.

It was still strangely peaceful as he inched nearer to his destination little by little. Naruto slipped behind a tree, struggling to keep his face straight at the person he could heed a small ways away; he could hear someone cussing under their breath, something that an ANBU certainly wouldn't do on a mission— at least, not that loud. Maybe he'd come across a civilian. Naruto didn't feel solid enough in the idea to reveal himself though and decided to wait and see what would unfold.

Another blast rocked the floor but from further away, although the fresh rush of adrenaline didn't seem to realize that. Naruto was already pretty jumpy as it stood, and he noticed that he could hardly keep his hand steady. He hadn't been in a situation that intense for over a month. Just how out of practice was he?

A new voice entered the scene. It was faint and distant, but loud enough for Naruto to notice. He squinted his eyes to search for the person, grateful for the shade of the forest canopy from the afternoon sun. Panic squeezed his lungs. He could spy a white mask crouched in the cover of a bush not far away, tapping at a radio wire in his ear. Had he seen him? Naruto breathed out smoothly. It didn't seem like it.

Actually, the closer the blonde looked, the more it seemed like the ANBU was watching right next to him. The teenager shrunk back a little, hoping to keep his cover from being blown by either person. A kunai. Naruto hadn't noticed it at first either until the ANBU's blade flashed a glare of sun into his eyes. The guy had a target.

Naruto glanced between the ANBU's line of sight and the man himself, lightly fingering the kunai he had slipped up his sleeve as he contemplated what to do next. The justice-seeking side of him told him to do something, but an opposing part told him to just leave it be and wait. One piece immediately over powered the other when the shinobi's blade flickered with lethal intent in the shadows.

"Look out!"

To be honest, Naruto didn't really know where any of the energy had come from to sprint across a space that fast, but it definitely disappeared by the time he and the person he had tackled hit the ground. The world decided to take it's time clearing up once the place had grown silent again. The blonde gently sat up, glad that he had tossed his kunai at the ANBU before landing or else he was certain he would've been nursing one heck of a wound.

"I—it's you!"

Accusing? Surprised?

Either way, the person he had decided to so graciously save recognized him, and the trend that anyone who knew him wasn't friendly seemed to be getting a pretty good laugh out of his situation lately. Naruto pushed himself off his stomach to look up. He hadn't regretted anything so much as seeing child-like, green eyes blinking at him in confusion. Maybe Sakura had been onto something when she told him he was too sacrificial…

"Wh—what the heck do you think you're doi—"

It was such a nice feeling to be able to clamp someone's mouth shut for once that Naruto was almost afraid that he'd done it too harshly. "Just shut up for five seconds, please!" he hissed, glancing around to make sure they hadn't attracted any attention. A lazy trail of wind sauntered through and tickled the foliage, but for the most part, everything seemed undisturbed. The hazel-haired girl in front of him was sticking him with the most irritated glare he'd ever received (well, excluding Sasuke, he corrected. Maybe Sakura too). She was still trying to speak through his hand, and it was probably more annoying than when she talked normally.

Naruto was getting slightly panicky, mentally killing himself for getting too close, but kept himself as calm as possible on the outside, thinking and over-thinking where to go from there. He really hoped karma wasn't getting back at him for all the pranks he had ever pulled, or it was going to be a very long day.

Something suddenly didn't feel right, something that Naruto couldn't ignore. He immediately retracted his hand with a panicky quickness. "Ew! Did you just lick me!?" The blonde shifted his eyes from his wet fingers in horrified shock.

"You wouldn't let me go, eh!" The girl sounded like that explained everything, folding her arms stubbornly.

"Yeah, but what are you? Five?" Naruto wiped off the spit on his torn pants with a murmur of disapproval. And people called him uncivilized.

The seriousness of the situation suddenly clicked back into place as another rough gust of wind blew through from a new detonation.

"Wow, they're really going to town on 'em today!"

Naruto turned back to the girl next to him, still crouched on a grassy patch of the ground. "You sound like this happens often, tte bayo," he commented lightly, slightly surprised at the short nod that came in response.

"Yep! Shipments usually pick up closer to winter."

The blonde almost wanted to ask more, but the realization hit him that he needed to lose this person as soon as he could.

He coughed into his hand as an icebreaker. "Well, ehrm, you seem to be off alright, so I guess I'll just be leaving now." Naruto made a swift exit, sighing that there hadn't been any—

"Hey, wait up!"

—of that. The blonde swept a hand across his face. The idea that karma was coming around to kick him in the butt seemed like a more plausible option by the second. A bouncy kid hastily scrambled after him and was soon walking sideways beside him, struggling to catch his attention. "So, Weird-Alias-san, where're we headed, eh?"

Naruto could've sworn he'd just choked on a bug. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Where're we goin'?"

The blonde bit back a groan. "Okay, okay, Airi, I don't have time fo—"

"It's Aki," the girl corrected with a snort, reciting both syllables slowly and widely. Naruto found room to mutter a quick apology to Iruka-sensei, wherever he was. It had seemed like a good idea to paint his desk pink at the time…

"Aki, whatever," the teenager breathed with a wave of his hand. "Look, your group is over where all the explosions are. Maybe you should go find them while I go the other direction." Naruto tautly gestured to the route he was headed.

Aki puttered to a stop, Naruto continuing on ahead. "I can't go 'find them'. I rigged the place with explosives, and Taichou ordered that I wait it out until they come find me. Yep." She nodded her head and trotted back up to him. "I'm just gonna stick with you for awhile then."

It was Naruto's turn to stop. It wasn't a hard thing to understand that someone wouldn't want to be tailed (heck, even he could get it), but this kid just couldn't grasp anything. His eyes widened. Kurama, wh—what if…

The fox perked up at the mention of his name but kept silent.

What if she's like Shikamaru? It took a moment, but soon Kurama had burst out laughing, flashing all of his canines. At the mockery, Naruto immediately went on the defensive. Just hear me out! She looks and acts like an idiot, but maybe she knows that I don't want to be tailed, and that's why she's so persistent— but in a stupid way, tte bayo! The teenager spared a glance over his shoulder, a tiny bit of paranoia wavering in his gaze as he peeked at the girl behind him. She's a genius.

Naruto, if you think that, you're as dumb as bricks. Why would she be ordered to lie low if she was an amazing strategist?

The insulted person had opened his jaw with a response but found that he had none. It was just a thought, he stuttered, fighting to nurse his wounded pride.

Kurama lightly shook his head and went back to napping, letting Naruto handle his own problems.

The person in question was standing at his side when Naruto came to a decision. "Fine. You can tag along for a little bit, but you have to be quiet. Consider it a favor to the person who just saved your hide, okay?"

"Eh? I didn't ask for you to save me!"

Naruto made a drastic signal over his shoulder for her to shut up. Apparently, Aki had problems following directions. Wonderful. The blonde continued to plow ahead, brushing a few ferns from his path.

"Where are you going?"

"That way." Naruto didn't bother turning around.

"You can't go that way. Konohagakure is over there."

The teenager exhaled loudly, not bothering to hide the agitation in his voice. He slowly rotated to face her. "Maybe I'd like to go to Konoha. Ever thought of that?"

"Why would anyone want to go there?" She crumpled up her face and caught up to the stranger. "I mean, the entire place is paranoid, and I think you just tried to kill one of their ANBU."

Naruto froze. Oh, crap. He had, hadn't he? He didn't have anywhere else to go, and the idea that he had basically exiled himself from the one place he did have was something he hadn't thought about in the moment. He promptly pulled himself together, already regretting the question he was going to ask. "What do you propose then?"

"Not going to Konoha for starters," she scoffed, her hands on her hips. "I wouldn't go to Iwa either. Or Kiri for that matter— too far to swim. Gosh, you are kinda screwed, huh?" Aki scratched at her cheek in thought, half trying to come up with a possible option, half not caring.

Naruto grumbled sarcastic thanks. He could've guessed that. His hitai-ate would've given him away before he'd have reached the border. The blonde ran a hand over his empty forehead. Right. He didn't even have that.

"Anyway," the girl continued, tugging at the edges of the ribbon around her waist. "I wouldn't go wandering around by myself if I were you. Konoha operatives aren't the worse things that are floating around."

Naruto straightened, suddenly feeling conscious about having stayed in the same place for so long. It was a wonder no one had come across them yet… "What do you mean 'worse things'?" he asked, opting for going a different direction with the kid in tow, a kid who was all too eager to blurt out an answer.

"One of their guys snuck up from behind me! I mean, he had to be ANBU, but no one has been able to get behind me that easily!"

Naruto sighed. He had almost gotten concerned over nothing. Based on the looks of it, it wouldn't have been that hard to get behind Aki at all, and she easily could've been over exaggerating if one judged her on her cocky attitude alone. He chimed a thoughtful hum to show that he was paying attention anyway. "And that's why you screamed like a sissy?"

The red marks lining her cheeks signaled a clear bull's-eye. "Ehh!? No! I was just startled!" Naruto shot her a glare to tell her to pipe down, but she went on in a harsh whisper, "I'm sure you would've freaked out if some guy randomly popped out from the inside of a tree behind you!"

Naruto's legs immediately stopped working. He really hoped that she was exaggerating.

"Ha, told you you'd be scare—"

"What did he look like!?" The blonde hardly noticed that he shaking the girl by her shoulders, but he didn't really care. He only knew three people who could naturally "pop out of trees". Unless Senju Hashirama decided to pay a visit from the grave or Yamato-taichou was with ANBU here…

"I dunno. He kinda looked like a shadow," came the startled reply. "Maybe he was wearing a full body suit or something. I didn't really get a good look cause he ran off."

Naruto sighed and ran a hand through his hair. It definitely sounded like him if anything... What a mess. Then again, it gave him something to shoot for. He sucked in a calming breath so that he didn't scare his only source of intel. "Did you see which way he went?" She had opened her mouth to answer when a collage of explosions echoed back through the forest, provoking a downpour of leaves and loose branches. There hadn't been that many before– especially all at once!

"What the heck?"

It seemed Naruto wasn't the only person who was surprised by the literal bombshell. A fast goodbye immediately came from the devotee next to him. "This is where we split, Alias-san. Nice knowing you." The blonde was slightly taken off guard by the tacky salute he was tossed.

Naruto slumped forward with a look of loathing. If Zetsu was hanging around, it would be an awful idea to let someone go traipsing around by themselves in a dank forest; it'd be like leading a lamb to the slaughter. He could always just get her to lead him to where the rest of her group was and then trail them. Zetsu seemed to have a knack for hanging around the same places they were. Naruto gave a mental nod of approval. He could do it, couldn't he? Of course. There couldn't possibly be any repercussions for that, could there? There wasn't any time to think of those things anyway. Uzumaki Naruto was better at winging things to begin with. He could handle anything.

The teenager had quickly caught up to the girl. "I— hold up, tte bayo!" Naruto swiftly rushed. "If you follow your own advice, you wouldn't want to be walking around here without someone else, right? This place is crawling with ANBU and that mystery guy. I really don't have anywhere else to go, so… I think I'll just hang around for a little while."

Smooth, turd.

"Lots of help you'll be with a cut up shoulder like that, eh."

Shoulder? Naruto glanced down, mutely stunned by the crimson that stained the black part of his sweatshirt, running down his hand. How could he have not felt that at all?! The solution was simple: pure adrenaline. The wound looked pretty deep, and he didn't want to think about how awful it would feel when the adrenaline left him.

Real smooth.

Can't you heal this, Kurama? Naruto asked pointedly. He was pretty sure that the fox was just choosing to be grumpy that day.

Remember that seal on your arm?

The blonde growled. He hated rhetorical questions just as much as bad karma.

Outside of his mind, the hazel-haired girl looked like she had half a mind to continue on without him, but for some reason, she stayed put, itching at the linen strips of her zori. "You done zoning out, Alias-san?"

"It's Naruto. If you ask someone for their name, you might as well remember it."

"Wait, that's really your name?" Aki looked like she was about a second away from laughing when another bang lit up the sky. It was closer than the last few. "They can't be that far from here. You can tag along if you want" (Naruto cringed at how quickly the tables had turned in that regard.) "Just don't get yourself killed or anything. There's already gonna be enough dead guys by the end of this."

Fine, Naruto huffed mentally, following after her. The forest rushed by like the rapids of a river, churning and animated in some moments and then abruptly tranquilizing. A few felled ANBU sunk into the blur, but the blonde hardly noticed, careful to keep a healthy distance from the person in front so that he wouldn't be found out. It seemed like everything could work out pretty smoothly. Then again, his head was growing fuzzy, maybe from blood loss, but he figured he'd be alright. He'd had much worse before.

He noticed the girl gradually coming to a halt. She looked a little lost, and Naruto began to regret following her. He probably should've just gone on his own. The idea that Aki would get lost hadn't been something that had occurred at the time; his brain felt like it was slowly turning to mud.

Call it gut instinct, but something Naruto couldn't put his finger on what made the hair on the back of his neck rise. He'd been having that feeling way too often. That knowledge didn't make it go away. The fact that the line of trees suddenly erupted into large flames, he figured, always could've played a part in it too.

His legs worked on impulse from years of training, training that could've been perceived as backwards because as soon as he saw the person he'd been trailing burst through the flames to the other side, he was speedily behind, the wall of fire the only thing barring his way. Naruto could feel the intensity of the heat smarting his skin in an orange dance, and the height of the flaming hedge seemed to outstretch the leafy canopy that was dissolving above. He could practically feel Zetsu on the opposing end, the only way to get answers to where he was and how to get back. But the blaze almost seemed too much to overcome in the moment.

The teenager forced his legs to back up a few paces, sucking in a deep breath, the air coated with ashen dust. He eyed the seemingly endless blaze. He'd overcome much more threatening things. Everything was tainted in warm tones, flickering back and forth and stretching distorted shadows. Even with a seal binding him , he could still make it. After all, home would be waiting on the other side. He could make it for sure.

Naruto didn't even know if he had the energy to push through it, but soon enough, he found himself rupturing the center of the vortex. It was like being stuck in a limbo of icy cold and scalding hot that canceled each other out in a fight that he was pinned in the center of. The roar of the fire was almost overwhelming. The smell was almost intoxicating. But somehow, he found himself spat out on the opposite end, landing roughly on his good shoulder, the first sign of luck he'd really had all day.

Haha! Made it, tte bayo! Naruto cheered, sticking a finger at his friend. Kurama rolled his eyes and let the blonde celebrate his minor accomplishment.

Naruto sat up on the other end of the forest, rubbing his aching head, a clearing splayed out around him from what he could gather. He brushed off his pant legs as he stood up. The success of his maneuver quickly drained from his face. A kunai hung a few inches from his face. Oh, how lovely…

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Haha, I owe you all a double apology:

1) Haha, so much OC this chapter *brick'd* I really feel awkward writing with her in this story, but I really needed Aki here because Kakashi and Minato in this universe just don't do much for any humor, and they're kind of…not dumber than Naruto is. I guess that's a good way to put it. She'll fade to the back as things settle, but I need a character that fits her mold for these intro chapters.

2) Cliffhanger… I'm so mean….

Well, that just about sums it up. Hope this chapter was okay for you all! I've had too much caffeine if that explains why it may or may not make any sense at all (/xD).

Until then, guys!

Minatochan2

If it doesn't say it's discontinued, it's not, so please follow or leave a review until then :)


	7. Antithetic

**Disclaimer:**I do not own Naruto. It'd be cool, bros, but nah.

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**Chapter 7:** Antithetic

**Naruto hazily reached** up to feel his head. He must've fallen asleep and not realized it. Or maybe he'd been awake the entire time and thought he'd been dreaming. It had almost seemed like he'd been back in time for a moment. He let out a bit of dry laughter. The lifetime ago was exactly that. He released a lungful of pent-up air through his nose, recalling the stale smell. A lifetime for certain….

The teen made a move to sit up and recognized the chill of the tile floor beneath him. Blinking the remaining sleep from his eyes, he waited for his irises to adjust to the shadowy atmosphere around him. One thing was certain: it was still black at least. Everything seemed pretty normal.

Someone shifted in the darkness beside him, letting out a deep breath. After the brief moment it took for him to recover from the initial startle, Naruto sunk further back on his hands, watching the dark image of the person and blatantly ignoring the tug of the chains, screaming that the connection between his wrists had been pushed to its limits. The position wasn't very practical, but he didn't give much thought to it in the moment.

So she was still there. The illusion seemed like it was never going to end, and the time that was slowly ticking by was spent pondering how to get out of the mess that he had curtly found himself in.

Naruto shuffled his hands out from behind himself to scratch his chin with a finger, avoiding any thoughts concerning the mysterious person to his right; that wasn't what was important. What was was trying to concoct a plan to outsmart a Kage and an Akatsuki member. Sadly, outsmarting had never been one of Naruto's more optimal qualities. Too be honest, he much rather would've blown through the wall behind him, and heck, if the woman next to him somehow was real, he'd save her too. But there was a large kink in that plan. Naruto gave a strong tug at his shackles. A very large kink.

The teen let his hands fall back into his lap, frowning harshly. He couldn't make a move if he couldn't control his energy, and he couldn't break restraints that resilient without some force. Even then, he was still in a genjutsu— and a pretty strong one at that. If he broke the chain and the illusion, he'd hate to imagine who could be waiting on the other side and hated even more to think of just how exhausted he'd be. No. As much as he disliked the notion, he'd have to wait it out until the moment was right. But even then, he still needed a plan, and the details of it weren't coming without a fight of their own. He didn't have all the variables— hardly any, in fact— and any attempt to get one ended up being met by a crude silence. Then again, losing it never helped anyone; he needed to keep a cool head. He sucked in another breath of stale air, the dust biting his throat in an almost refreshing fashion. Almost. Either way, he was fully awake by then.

Another shuffle. Naruto glanced over. It seemed his fellow inmate was still sleeping peacefully, almost as if nothing bad could ever exist in the world, leaving the blonde wondering whether he enjoyed the company or loathed it. On one hand, it was a pleasant change to have a companion nearby, but at the same time, a fake companion wasn't really much of one. A deep frown marred his face for a moment as he agitatedly eyed his suddenly unwelcome guest. He supposed he really couldn't be too mad at a fake person (he hated to admit it, but he _had_ felt better since having a conversation with someone), but he figured he _did_ have a right to be upset with the people that dumped her here. Sure, he had flown with a rebel group for awhile. Did that mean he was destined to be bored in an illusion forever? They could've at least acknowledged the fact that he'd figured out the genjutsu and done something a little more interesting.

Naruto set his hands on his crossed legs. Maybe he was taking things for granted. He'd been hoping for someone else to be around, and now, there was. He was pretty certain that he knew what was going on though. He'd had so much time to think it through that it was nearly impossible _not_ to have an idea. And all because someone else was playing dirty on a field that he wasn't used to didn't mean that he still couldn't win. He smirked. If anyone could pull off a victory as an underdog, it was Naruto. But that didn't solve the problem that time was going too slow to be real. It felt like a second lasted for days.

Naruto managed to bring himself to his feet, tapping his forehead with the side of his pointer fingers. A few pieces still didn't make sense though, and if he wasn't able to grasp any answers inside of a prison cell, he figured that there must've been a few that he'd missed when he'd been on the other side….

* * *

**The first thing** that Naruto noticed when he'd manage to gather himself was the feeling of not being gathered at all. He was certain that all of his organs had been misplaced; his heart was drumming in his head, his lungs were stuck in his throat, and his brain was divided between his feet with only a thin wire connecting them all together like a dozen puppets all dangling from the same plank that were barely functioning without ramming into one another. His stomach must've taken the day off altogether, leaving an unpleasant taste in his mouth. He didn't think he could even handle opening his eyes, and he didn't really want to. The blonde much rather would've dozed off again, but a few noises started to bash against his skull like a battering ram, and the appealing idea seemed to be quickly slipping out of reach.

The teenager hazily lifted his hand to his face to massage away the last of his dream, leaving his hand there to block some of the intrusive sun rays.

"Look who's finally coming to."

Naruto must've mumbled something that was amusing since the person next to him laughed, the noise rattling his head like a gong. He carefully moved his hand to allow some air to reach his face and gulped it in as if he'd just emerged from a watery grave. It smelt of crisp autumn leaves, dirt, and carried a nearly invisible hint of something that he couldn't identify, and the coolness of it all forced a cough from him, the unhappy squeeze his lungs gave him a reminder of how unwell he felt, and his feet almost stuttered over a stray rock. He must've been walking in his daze somehow, his arm slung over someone else's shoulder. He supposed the constant travel must've conditioned him for it, but the fact that he could walk in his sleep didn't seem to make it any easier on his aching muscles.

The blonde forced his eyes to flutter open, cringing at the daggers of light that pierced his pupils and made his head pound even harder to the off-tempo beat that his lungs were dancing to. Unlike himself, the outside world seemed to be having a pretty good day. The sky was a clear cerulean with a few tree canopies stretching out in an attempt to grab the scorching midday sun. A crowd of birds twittered gaily and took off in a journey elsewhere. Naruto had trouble making out a lot of the details, and he gradually hid his face back in his palm, his brain deciding that he'd seen enough for one day.

"Hmm, so there is life."

Naruto finally turned his head to the sarcastic man beside him, dully curious as to who was helping him along, much to his body's displeasure. A face that could only be assumed as chipper glinted back at him with a few tendrils of gray-white hair slipping out from his hitai-ate. It seemed a familiar sight to Naruto.

"Sensei?"

The man's face flushed for a second before he shook his head. "Um, not quite," he laughed again, looking slightly embarrassed. Naruto spent a moment scrutinizing the person he could've sworn was the exact duplicate of his teacher. His memory was foggier than he had originally thought. He wished his brain would stop lagging down by his feet and get back in his head where it was supposed to be. Even with that, the blaring tear through the insignia on the warrior's forehead snapped Naruto's mind back into place like a tsunami a beach.

He took in a sharp breath through his nostrils. Smoke. Then that was the other scent that had mingled in with the forest air. That's right. He'd made it through that sporadic fire, and then, someone else had been on the other side…

Naruto strained his thoughts, trying to put a face to the image, but nothing was clicking into place, and his head was beginning to ache even more fiercely. The only thing he could remember was the edge of a blade. Something about it had seemed funny in the moment though. Maybe it was the color? No, that didn't seem right. Maybe the shape… yeah! That was it. It was almost like he had been seeing triple.

The familiar face of Kakashi observed nearby, still seeming relaxed but obviously tenser than before. The humorous charm had rapidly dissolved as he watched the blonde recall what had happened, and his black irises assumed a calculating appearance that he was familiar with.

Naruto sucked in a breath, taking a moment to appreciate the harsh sting of his abdomen. It was official. He had definitely missed something.

Kakashi's look grazed over him. "You feeling well enough to walk?"

The blonde nodded, only half-paying attention to what the man was saying. He rubbed his forehead detachedly, and it eased the pangs a little.

Kakashi carefully lifted the teenager's arm off his shoulder, still watching him like a hawk. Even with his teacher's caution, a streak of blunt pain flared along the skin of Naruto's shoulder into the rest of his body, and he had to bite back a grunt. A strip of white linen caught his eye along his arm, a spot of red bleeding through the layers. He really must've missed something big…

The older man gradually managed to help him stand on his own. Naruto glanced at his wrists, noting the lack of a cord.

"You were poisoned," Kakashi filled in, a suspicious glint still dangling in his eyes. "It wasn't lethal, but you probably won't feel one-hundred percent for awhile. Aki and Guruko filled us in on what happened."

As if on cue, a high-pitched voice chose that moment to join in the conversation, shooting a vibration through Naruto's head that left no corner untouched. "Oi! You're awake, eh?" Kakashi sent an uninterested look his way before a boisterous girl darted through. "Whoa! You look like crap! Do you feel as bad as you look?"

Naruto groaned, massaging his temples. "Yes, so would you mind being quieter, tte bayo?"

"Well, sure, eh, except Guruko has something to say to you."

"Guruko?" Naruto grumbled, shifting his hand so he could see her properly.

The girl nodded excitedly and picked up the same dog from earlier, the pup's almond fur matted and in disarray. "Guruko!" she explained happily. "You guys have already met. If you couldn't tell, he's a bit of an a—"

"Put me down!" he barked, making a move to nip Aki's hands but couldn't seem to get within range. "I've got a bone to pick with both of you!" Guruko wriggled out of the girl's grasp, landing roughly on the dirt path.

Naruto watched complacently as the obviously upset dog continued to dish out intricately worded offenses on the person in front of him, leaving no stone unturned when it came to things he could insult. Kakashi looked on in the background, seeming jaded in regards to such spurts, but he was still on guard to the blonde close to him, a hand on his hip near his pack of weaponry. Naruto picked up on the defensive position. Something more was going on than it seemed. He brought his wrists to eye level, noting the red lines across the skin. Not necessarily fresh but…

The blonde wondered if the seal was still there too. Most likely. Even if it was gone, with the way his stomach was tumbling around on ocean waves, he didn't think he could even handle the dog in front of him if he got into a fight. He wasn't tied up, but Naruto had a feeling that he wasn't even close to being home-free.

"And you!" Guruko snapped, spinning around to face his next victim, his dark eyes squinted into transparent slits. Naruto took a surprised step back as he was tossed from his reverie. "Don't even get me started on you!" The teenager prepared himself for a similar barrage (about what, he was slightly interested in discovering), but someone else swiftly came to his aid— in one way or another, anyway.

"We need to get moving if we're going to have a place to sleep tonight," came a nonchalant voice from further away. Everyone's heads clicked in the same direction to face a reclined blonde, a serious air hanging on all of his features, settling collectively in a pair of feline, blue eyes, graciously shadowed by the leaves of a tree above him. It seemed he'd been watching the whole ordeal with them, and the teenager hadn't realized.

After coming to his feet and straightening his flak jacket, Minato sent a glance to everyone around, the gesture pointed more toward Naruto than anyone else. "You can walk then, right?" Naruto nodded curtly, setting aside the ache in his legs to let the man step out in front.

"Good, then you better not fall behind."

Naruto scowled at the back of the man's head. His hospitality seemed to have run out. That aside, Minato seemed more serious than usual, and that was nearly impossible as it stood. The younger blonde wondered why— or why he was even keeping him around. It probably dealt with that gap in his memory. As much as he tried, Naruto's jumbled thoughts were met with the same abyss once again when he tried to think back.

He rubbed his shoulder, aggravated at how much damage a seemingly harmless cut could deal. And to make matters more confusing, why use a non-lethal poison? That wouldn't make any sense at all, especially considering how eager the ANBU were to light the forest on fire. He'd probably run into one of them and then blacked out.

"You coming?" Kakashi questioned from a few meters ahead, Guruko growling on about this and that at his side while Minato had already covered a lot of ground.

"Wait, we're traveling on the road?" Naruto thought aloud, furrowing his brow. For the few weeks he had spent as a captive, they had never taken a road, especially not one at the forest's edge. He observed the dirt path beneath his feet as if it were able to change into some merciless beast at a second's notice.

A silver-head of hair nodded in response, a stony expression cast along the visible part of his face. "Changing things up. Come on. We have to get going."

"I— okay," Naruto stumbled, sparing a look over his shoulder. Zetsu was around— he could feel it. But as much as he would've happily made a smooth exit, he could also feel Minato and Kakashi, watching his every move. Naruto almost wished he was tied up again. At least that way he would have a tangible reason for sticking around.

Both Minato and his student had stopped, hard as rock, waiting for Naruto's next move. He exhaled. There wasn't really much of a choice left for him, so he trotted up to the rest of the group, hoping that in some, twisted way he'd end up back home where he belonged.

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**Author's Note:**

Quite a few answers coming next round for those of you feeling like all you have it questions, and more Minato (I'm realllyyyyy excited (./u/.) you think you've been the only one waiting for the Yellow Flash to come in? *whispers* you're notttt (. - .)). More writing time for me with summer here, so I will be a happy camper, and hopefully, you will all be happy readers.

If it doesn't say discontinued, it's not, so please follow and review until then. Thanks!

Minatochan2


	8. Polarity

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto. I think I'd rather sleep than be up all night making one of the greatest mangas ever.

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**Chapter 8:** Polarity

"This is the place you were talking about?" Naruto blinked, taking in the small abode in front of them. It was a wooden, one-story house with a roof of the same material, cheerfully positioned in a clearing of the woods that was one of the few places that met with the moonlight that was seeping through the treetops. The chances that such a peaceful place could be labeled as a safe house for a rebel group weren't running too high in Naruto's book, but then again, anything was possible.

The answer to his previous inquiry came in a swift nod from Kakashi. "Yep, but it's just for tonight, so don't get any ideas."

"Thanks, I won't," Naruto scowled, rubbing his shoulder. Kurama could've easily healed it, but he'd taken the day off apparently. It would've looked suspicious anyway if a slash of any size had suddenly vanished within a day. And then there was that pesky seal. He'd almost forgotten.

"Oi! Hurry it up, lazybones!" Naruto let the noisy blur of a person rush past to awe at the house, his eyes causally drifting toward the leader of the group who was positioned a ways away, taking in everything with all the seriousness in the world. With the way he was scanning the area, it wasn't much of an imaginative leap to guess that they had someone on their tail. He hadn't been so uneasy on the road— a backwards thought— and as soon as they had made a detour off the road back into the woods, he'd been appearing more and more paranoid. Naruto could practically see the tension, and he was pretty sure that it was rubbing off on himself.

"It's getting dark," Kakashi commented, politely indicating that the teenager had stood there long enough. Naruto could take a hint and clambered up to the house.

A young woman greeted them once they had knocked on the door, her crimson eyes sparkling from the surprise. Naruto could've coughed up a lung in his own! Her face still seemed angelically pale, framed with the traditional dark hair of his teacher. It was Kurenai! Her vision darted over them for a moment. "I'm sorry," she excused, her voice unnaturally flat. "But would you happen to have the time?"

Naruto turned to Minato in confusion, wondering how he'd respond. They didn't have any way to tell exactly, and the best way to guess was the sun, which had already gone down a while back. The leader folded his arms like he already had a response planned, stating it as if it had been rehearsed a few hundred times, "Last I saw, it was half past four, but that's just me."

Naruto spared a glance up to the blotted out sky to make sure he wasn't just seeing things. The night sky screamed that it definitely wasn't anywhere near four. A code then. But why say it out loud like that in front of a prisoner?

Meanwhile, Kurenai had emerged completely from behind the door, softly rubbing her rounded stomach, a pleasant smile cracking her face. She was dressed completely in casual clothing, her pregnancy obviously disregarding any common shinobi activities. "Minato-sensei, Kakashi, it's been too long." Her eyes slid along all the people at her doorstep another time, exchanging a few questioning glances to her friends when they reached Naruto and Aki. Naruto was pretty sure she had picked up on his status in that moment. No one would ever be the wiser if they hadn't watched closely, though, as she kept the calm air about her. "Please, come in."

"Don't mind if I do," Guruko imposed suddenly, scraping his filthy paws on the entrance mat to clean them off. The dog was grinning as if he hadn't seen the indoors in years, but his satisfaction quickly disappeared when Kakashi, slipping off his zori, beckoned him back to the doorway before he could go tromping around the house. Nevertheless, the dog obeyed and soon had dispersed after Kakashi had given him a short hand signal. Naruto watched him go by, but the disapproving countenance on a similar blonde's face hurriedly sent him about taking off his shoes too (they were almost falling off on their own as it stood.)

"Sorry if you were looking for Asuma. A few hours ago, he went to get more supplies in town. He should be back long before morning, though," echoed Kurenai's voice from the other end of the house.

"That's not a problem. We weren't planning on doing any traveling for a while. Would you mind if we waited here?" Minato inquired, taking a few steps into the wide hall. Naruto followed distantly, taking in everything he could see. It was definitely a different environment than the forest outside, but a few tree roots snaked up the walls in a ghostly manor, none of them messing with the interior much, a few sprouting blossoms. The teenager hadn't seen decorating like that, but then again, he couldn't really be too shocked. It was Kurenai, after all.

Naruto carefully stepped over a stray root and into a small living space, his vision still spinning vaguely but, for the most part, cooperating with him. A team of simple, wax candles lit up the place in blotches of yellow light, casting strange shadows on the similarly simple and few furniture pieces spread sparingly across the house.

The lack of photos or personal touches around was a little out of place, he realized. It could be easily deserted if necessary; it held hardly any sentimental value. The more he studied the place, the more it seemed to be a perfect safe house. He still wondered exactly what his captors had done to need to resort to such drastically different travel plans. Getting in trouble seemed to be pretty normal, but then again, he hadn't been around for too long. Either way, he didn't think asking was the right way to go. He'd try to be patient.

It seemed someone else had an identical thought since Minato swiftly turned to Aki, who had been chattering to herself quietly, and muttered something into her ear, coolly tilting his head toward a separate room. The girl almost looked like she was about to have a fit, but she trudged off toward Naruto's direction, amazingly, without another word. "Come on, eh," she snorted. "I'm stuck with you for awhile longer."

Naruto figured the more talkative alternative was better than the icy glares he was getting if he stayed where he was. He didn't feel like his feet could support him much longer either way and excused himself.

The oak flooring beneath him creaked slightly as he let himself slide down the wall onto the ground. His limbs ached even more when he was sitting.

"Still feel like cra—"

"Yes. I do," he muttered, lying on the floor with his back turned to the person sitting on the other side of the room. "I'm going to get some sleep so that I don't 'feel like crap'. Okay?"

Naruto ignored the expected response of a one-sided conversation. It felt like his head was aching even more now too. Every single sound was amplified and hammering against his skull all at once, and for the first time, he cursed the fact that he had good hearing. He could hear every chirp of the crickets outside, the night wind pound against the side of the house, the floor boards creaking from the other room…

The blonde nearly jumped up at the new idea that hit him. He took back anything bad he'd just said about having good hearing! He pinned his eyes shut, focusing as hard as he could muster. Maybe if he tried hard enough…

Kurenai's soft voice carried through the floorboards.

"…heard from any of you in awhile. I was worried that something had happened. I figured the fire yesterday had something to do with you all."

"We had it all under control. It was an important trade route to Ame. Fall's when everything is stocked up for winter before the floods get bad, and now, their forces will be a few steps behind. We had to make a move sooner or later. And besides, we were feeling a little unnoticed," Kakashi joked lightly.

That would explain a few things, Kurama commented, listening with his head on his paws, his ears cocked back.

Shh! I'm trying to hear, tte bayo!

"I don't think anyone couldn't have noticed that. You just picked up a lot of unwelcome visitors," Kurenai continued, followed by a faint sound of rushing rain. She was probably pouring some drinks. "As brave a move as you all have just made, you're going to have to lie low for awhile."

"That's why we need to talk to Asuma. Has he heard anything about the border of Wind Country?" Minato entered, his voice as controlled as ever.

"Wind Country?"

Naruto figured there must've been a mutual nod.

"Why Wind? They're allies of the Land of Fire!"

"Hardly," Minato's voice cut through again. "Sarutobi-sama had always been able to keep the balance between the Yondaime Kazekage, but even then, diplomacy between the two had been strained. With Wind country's topography, we've always been dealt more missions, so Suna's been falling slowly into poverty over the past few years. You should know that. They're growing desperate, and it seems our stubborn Yondaime isn't quite as skilled when it comes to compromising. I've caught wind that he's increased the amount of missions that Konoha's accepting, and Suna's economy is taking the fall for it. Also, a few conspiracies are flying around that he's trying to pick a fight with the neighboring nations. Tensions are running pretty high, and Wind Country seems to be a pretty solid cover for people who've got a nasty reputation in the Land of Fire."

"…knowing you two, though, I doubt you'll keep a low profile for very long…" Another pause. "…You don't plan on making any big moves here, do you, sensei…?"

For a moment, Naruto gathered that they had started whispering and pressed his ear closer to the floor, praying that he'd pick up on a few more tidbits. What he had heard was news to him, and any second lost was the same as a year lost. Luckily, the secrecy didn't last too long, and he was able to pick up on their voices again, still in a hoarse whisper but not impossible to understand.

"I see. And what about the people traveling with you…?"

Naruto's heart skipped a beat as he pressed his ear as close to the wooden boards as he could possibly get, struggling to keep any sounds of the chatty girl behind him out of his thoughts, who was obliviously carrying on a conversation with herself.

"…we're a few short, actually," Kakashi commented. "Two are off in a mission in Iwa, looking for intell. I've already sent a nin-ken to intercept them as we speak. We had to make a change of plans if you couldn't tell or else we probably would've made for the neutral territory further north and come back around…"

"I see. It wouldn't have anything to do with—"

A strange sound from beneath the ground pulsed up, almost as if the very structure of the house were alive, a robust system of moving parts. Naruto lifted his head up slightly but quickly. That was… weird. He spent a moment questioning what it was but remembered what was being discussed in the other room and returned to his previous post. No time for distractions. He was trying to siphon out the shifting below when it suddenly stopped to be replaced by the noise of pounding footsteps and yipping.

"Guruko," he cursed under his breath. The second he got the chance, he was going to cuss that dog out. The scuttling of the claws across the entrance mat wasn't too hard to discard, but the blonde had already been struggling with hearing the adults' dialogue as it stood. He managed to smother his breathing with the end of his tattered, black sleeve, his distressed lungs angrily stomping inside of his ribcage for more oxygen, but that wasn't too difficult to ignore either.

"…gaku had sent a message a few days ago. Knowing his usually neat penmanship, he seemed flustered. He even coded everything. Asuma was up all night translating it."

"What was it that was so urgent?" cut in the familiar, business-like tone of the Yellow Flash.

"He refused to discuss what was going on in his letter; he wouldn't talk to anyone else but you, and he wanted it to be in person. He mentioned that they'd tightened security around the village, so it's been harder for him to leave. I'll see if I can't smuggle a letter back in. In the meantime, it seems like you've got visitors."

"Kakashi!" sliced in a bark. Guruko… Naruto had almost thought he'd been found out. He breathed out his relief and went back to listening.

"I checked around the perimeter, and it didn't seem like we were being followed."

"I didn't notice anything strange either, Taichou," piped a child's voice. Naruto flinched. Strange. He couldn't remember hearing someone else enter... It must've been the smaller boy from before with the unruly hair. I forgot about him.

Maybe you should be more attentive, turd, a crimson fox yawned, rolling onto his side, obviously unamused. He wasn't around when you woke up earlier.

You couldn't have told me that then? Naruto snuffed, mentally folding his arms.

Learn to handle yourself. It's not my job to baby-sit.

Naruto grumbled, focusing back on what was going on in the other room. It seemed Guruko had poofed away, and the child had likewise vanished, probably into one of the other spaces in the house. The opposing room had grown disturbingly quiet again. He'd missed the most important part of the conversation, the part that directly affected him, and he hoped that they'd return back to run through what he'd missed. Naruto tuned out anything and everything around him, centering every fiber of his able body on that single space. He had to know what was going on…

"What are you doing?"

The teenager nearly jumped out of his skin, luckily going straight as a board instead of zipping to his feet in front of what might as well have been an older version of himself.

"Shh, he was trying to go to sleep, eh," Aki responded crossly, comically putting her arms on her hips while sitting on a desk that only extenuated her short stature. Ironically, she'd been the one talking the entire time, but no one would've guessed that with the way she was accusingly pinning someone older than her with a displeased scowl.

Naruto released the terse air that had been sitting in his throat, trying his best to keep from breathing heavily and revealing the fact that he'd been trying to listen in. He just had to fake it until the man left. It was an easy thing to do.

His stomach still managed to squeeze in a flip underneath his suffocating lungs, and he wasn't sure whether it was from the after-effects of the poison or the person standing a few meters away from him. Just play it cool. He'd acted innocent plenty of other times when he was younger and had done deviously devious things, much worse than eavesdropping. Then again, he'd never successfully gotten away with any of them…

The blonde casually turned onto his back, reclining on his elbows and putting on what he considered to be the best poker face of his entire life. "…yeah, is there a problem with that?"

In that very moment, he was certain he could hear a twig snap above all their heads.

I think the innocent look you were going for could've done with a little less sass, brat, Kurama remarked with an exasperated groan, his head dropping onto the floor.

Naruto normally would've argued his point, but based on the fact that Minato actually had some sort of emotion on his face other than that of mild annoyance, he had to agree. "Mild annoyance" wasn't exactly what would be used to describe what was radiating from the adult. Perhaps extreme agitation was a better term. The fleeting thought that he would've been doomed had he ever been put into an espionage unit crossed Naruto's mind.

Luckily, Minato speedily regained his composure— on the outside at least— and turned toward the bubbliest person in the room. "Aki, you can bunk with Kakashi and Daisuke for tonight. I'll take over." It didn't take long for the girl to bound out of the room, of course, not after a hyper "yes, sir!" And then there were two.

This'll be fun to watch.

Naruto wouldn't have picked that exact phrase, especially not when Minato took a seat immediately next to him. The teenager pulled his legs in as close as possible to himself while sitting indian-style, letting the awkward period of silence fester in the room until it almost intoxicated the air itself. It was about as uncomfortable as when he caught Jiraiya peeping at bath houses, but in his current scenario, he couldn't fling a few frustrated insults at anyone. Even so, the jinchuriki felt like he should've said something, but nothing came to mind that would be adequate for a captive to ask his guard, so he kept his mouth shut. Besides, maybe the Yellow Flash appreciated the quiet.

It wasn't long before Naruto stole a small glance out of the corner of his eye. The person next to him might as well have been a statue, his chiseled features flickering in the dancing candle light, azure eyes trained on the opposing wall like it was the only thing in the world that mattered. Naruto faced forward again, swishing his tongue around his mouth while he looked around the room for something entertaining. Kurenai's wreathed vegetation left much to be desired when it came to that category, and his eyes inevitably drew back to the only other person in the room. Minato didn't seem to mind that he had a teenager scrutinizing him, apparently tolerating him until Asuma's return.

"Where'd you get that bruise?" Naruto suddenly asked.

"What?"

Naruto was mutely surprised that he had gotten a reply and aimed to keep the conversation going. The elder blonde had hardly said anything to him in all of a month aside from blunt orders or questions. He was curious as to why he was suddenly willing to spare a sentence on him, even if It was a critical one.

He tapped his own jaw lightly. "That bruise. It looks like someone whacked you pretty good, tte bayo."

The man's eyes sparked with a toned-down killing intent that hovered over Naruto's face for a long while. Obviously he had picked the wrong conversation starter, even though Minato's tone remained uncannily monotonous. "Where do you think?"

"I don't know. I don't remember," Naruto mumbled, not feeling bold enough to directly answer, hoping to fish out a bit more information on what was going on than what he'd already gotten within the past hour. "I don't know why you're still keeping me around anyway if I'm such a liability."

Kurama's eyes flashed pointedly inside the teenager's psyche. Be careful where your treading, brat. The only reason they don't have you tied up is because they know you're not strong enough yet to fight back. Keep that in mind.

Minato casually pulled one of his Flying Thunder God kunai out of the pouch on his thigh, examining the blade with the same, calculating stare he always seemed to have. "You could still be useful in one way or another— but not enough to keep alive if you cause problems, so stop asking questions," he said, poking the middle blade tip with a finger. For once in his life, Naruto decided he'd said enough, casually leaning back to watch the other blonde inspect his weaponry. The blade style on his kunai looked awkward to use, the cream colored handles marked with what he could only assume was the technique that had earned the Yellow Flash his moniker. He wondered what the symbols could've meant, but the man had that side of the hilt distrustfully tilted away from him. His eyes gradually hovered back to the blade, the ochre candle flashing along the three prongs like a full blown fire.

Naruto flinched as his memory filled in a piece of the abyss. He thought he'd been seeing triple, but it had been… Then that bruise…

Kurama looked like he was about to keel over laughing. You hit a kage!? Haha, I didn't know you were that stupid! I almost can't believe it! What is with you and socking your dad?

Shut up! I didn't know what I was doing, Naruto remarked, waving his arms stubbornly. And wouldn't you have remembered that!? You were there!

The demon grinned devilishly. I can't see anything outside of what you do. If you were that out of it, you might as well have blacked out, and it wouldn't have mattered in regards to me, the fox explained, still cackling deeply in his ribcage.

As much as he might have not intended to, it did explain why Minato was being so harsh with him, but it definitely didn't explain why he was talking to him more. Naruto would have expected the exact opposite. The jinchuriki gulped. He didn't want to guess what else he might have done while he was delirious if he picked a fight with someone that could've crushed him. But why wouldn't Minato have just ended him right then and there? Naruto wasn't sure whether he wanted to find out anymore.

He peeked over to the person next to him, who had already been eyeing him probingly, still maintaining the threatening aura he always had, kunai remaining in his grip. "Ah. Sorry about that," the young jinchuriki muttered, scratching his cheek. "I wasn't all together, tte bayo."

Minato turned to his head to face him completely. "Actually, I think you were." Naruto batted his eyes in confusion as the adult continued. "No Konoha shinobi have orders to take prisoners, especially in matters concerning rebel shinobi, so why would they douse their blades in non-lethal toxins? All of them were. I checked every single one myself. The only explanation would be that they had a man on the inside that was too valuable to lose, and I'm pretty sure that they did." The shinobi's cobalt glare was as strong as ever; he was laying all his cards on the table. "I think that you let yourself get taken prisoner and are waiting to feed information back through ROOT. It's not that complicated to piece together. No shinobi that can effectively use taijutsu under the influence of a strong poison would ever let themselves be taken in that easily. I'd come clean if I were you because I don't plan on letting you live if the hokage himself comes knocking on this door with an army behind him."

Naruto was dumbfounded. It seemed the Yellow Flash had gathered enough pieces of the puzzle to put together, but he placed them all in the wrong spots. And nothing was worse than trying to convince someone they were wrong when they were positive they're right— and have a knife handy. Kurama was just as dry when it came to responses too, giving the blonde an unhelpful shrug.

The fact that Minato thought he had vital information about ANBU Root would explain why he was being kept alive, but it didn't help that the jinchuriki didn't have any intel at all, and there was little chance he could prove that he wasn't a member of the organization, especially if the ANBU of this world matched the one in his own. But he had to get through the conversation somehow as Minato's eyes were still pinned to him.

Naruto ripped his gaze from the person in front of him, turning to watch the single candle on the other side of the room, the flame dancing lightly over the wick, exerting a golden glow that tried to fight off all the darkness by itself.

"I can clearly see Ashura's chakra flowing to you," the ancient sage had said, his ringed eyes calmly taking in the younger blonde before him.

"You seem to have something that attracts people to you," he continued, surrounded by a group of peaceful demons, ready and willing to lend their strength. "I can understand why you could summon my soul. And why Ashura would chose you to reincarnate."

A blonde in tattered clothes gave him a determined look, remembering all the people supporting him, counting on him. "Thank you, but I know what "friends" are. And I want to protect them. That's all."

"Don't worry, Pops! I'll find the answer!" A younger blonde had exclaimed, still torn from battle but standing tall before his father.

""Is that your answer?"

"What do you think is the answer?"

Minato recoiled, the serious tone to his face fading completely, being replaced with innocent surprise.

"To peace," Naruto turned back, his blue eyes twinkling.

The Yellow Flash remained quiet. He was visibly stunned by the sudden question, having expected either a confession or a denial. Another question was something that he hadn't been prepared for, and he didn't respond, observing the person in front of him, waiting to see where he would take things.

Naruto waited patiently but slowly continued, his eyes glowing with determination. "I don't know why I'm here, or even how. I don't know the solution for this world. I actually don't know many things at all. But if I have learned only one thing in my entire life, it's that I want nothing more than to protect the people most precious to me. That's probably not the answer that you'd like or the answer that you'd accept, but it's the one thing that I do know for sure in my heart."

A piece of tense silence rung through the whole house at that moment, the wind softly stirring a few pines outside with a silver touch, the crickets chirping as a beat for the dancing candlelight.

Minato shook the mesmerized expression from his face, reassuming the normal apathy. "Go to sleep," he ordered quietly, returning his eyes to the front.

The conversation was over.

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**Author's Note:**

Following the most boring chapter came the most exciting one for me to write (.u.) I hope it was the same when you all read it! I've wanted to get to this part since I first got hit with this plot bunny, and the next chapter is pretty interesting too (not as much, but you know how it is). Naruto has blessed Minato with his classic talk-no-jutsu. Haha, great! But there's still a long way to go for this story, and I hope you guys'll stick with me, even though I'm a butt of an author!

Thank you for reading, and if it doesn't say it's discontinued, it's not, so please follow and review! Until next time, guys! :)

Minatochan2


	9. The Retreat to Sand!

**Disclaimer: **Sup. Disclaimer means I don't own it, man, and I don't. (._.)

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**Chapter 9: **The Retreat to Sand!

Naruto rolled onto his back, staring at the uninteresting ceiling hovering above him. He'd been having trouble getting back to sleep since he'd woken up from his dream a few hours ago. It had been about a monochrome desert, a familiar one at that. Something about it made him feel oddly uncomfortable, but the dream hadn't been anything too horrific— pretty plain, actually. He'd probably just been thinking too hard about what he'd overheard about Suna.

His blue eyes pierced a crack in the wood paneling, hardly distinguishable against the shadows of the night. The candle had died sometime when he had been asleep. Minato was another thing that had since gone, leaving behind a clear order not to move from the room.

The last bits of their conversation repeated in his head like a broken record. As much as he wouldn't have taken back a single word he'd said, Naruto was certain that he'd only dug himself into a deeper hole, judging on how Minato had brushed off his speech like he'd never even said anything.

The blonde turned on his side, his fingers tapping the flooring as he continued thinking, hoping he could at least tire out his brain if he couldn't come up with any solutions to his stagnant problem. Only one answer was reoccurring as a possibility, and that was the craziest of all of them: to get Minato to agree to remove the seal. The mere thought was a lost cause.

He could hear faint whispers from the other end of the house, no doubt between Asuma and Minato concerning their passage through the Land of Rivers to Wind Country, but they had wisely relocated to a space just out of earshot, and Naruto had stopped attempting to catch any of their conversation, more occupied with trying to get some sleep. A few hours remained before dusk, he guessed, based on the darkness of the sky and the fact that the twilight's chorus of crickets and cicadas was still performing, and there was no point in wasting the time. His mind had readjusted to sleeping between when the sun set and the middle of the night though, and trying to force himself to bed when he felt completely rested was becoming less appealing.

Naruto abruptly stopped drilling the floor with his fingers. There was that noise again, the mysterious shifting from beneath the house. It had woken him up earlier, shortly before Asuma had arrived, but now, it seemed it was back again. The jinchuriki sat up, waiting for the sound to disappear. Unlike the other two times, the eerie crunch of dirt continued to sound more quietly until it was almost impossible to ignore. It was that same noise that planted the thought in his stomach that something wasn't right.

Naruto got to his feet, pleased that the aches throughout his body had finally subsided, not including the sting of his shoulder, but he pushed the satisfaction aside. He had no plans to make an escape, his last attempt having not gone as well as planned, but his curiosity pulled him toward the closed door near him on an invisible string. The river of candlelight flooded through the bottom of the entrance in a meek attempt to brighten the interior but was cut off before it got too far, swallowed up by the overwhelming darkness.

The bad feeling was cultivating in his stomach. He hadn't had such a strong gut instinct in a long time, and Naruto questioned it for a moment, but it had never failed him before.

The teenager watched the stream tensely, unconsciously flipping through his options, almost as if there were a real fight waiting for him on the other side. He was certain that the door was probably tripped with something, but it couldn't have been anything too serious— who'd want to blow up their own safe house? Besides, if they really were being trailed, then there couldn't have been anything too flashy or else they'd attract attention. But who could've been behind it that was causing all the sensors in him to go haywire? It couldn't have been Minato or Asuma, that much was assured. Their hushed words still lingered through the halls. But the possibility that there was no one grew at all stronger with every minute that he waited.

Naruto wasn't sure how long he'd stood there, but eventually, the blonde shook his head, feeling foolish for getting so worked up over nothing, and went back to his previous spot on the ground. Kurama, who had been watching just as intently as him, relaxed slightly, his crimson irises retaining a fiery concentration.

Definitely too awake to go back to sleep by then, Naruto opted on sitting, not sure what to do next. He sighed, running a hand through his hair, the absence of his hitai-ate still an unnerving thought, but another was tugging stronger at his brain. That same feeling continued to weigh down his gut with a hot vengeance, although the movement below the flooring had stopped.

He laughed dryly. Too much time with the Yellow Flash, he supposed.

His attention lazily grazed past the only window in the room, the moon tattooing a checkered square on the bare floor, sprinkling the drowsily drifting dust in the air with a radiance that glistened on contact. But as much as he tried and as much as everything seemed as peaceful as could be, the teenager couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to happen, and his sight inevitably made its way back to the bottom of the door, the golden stream blaring like a siren in the night. The entire area tranquilized, stuck in a sleepy trance that only Naruto seemed immune to— just him and the slip of light.

The shadow of a foot was quick to cut through the peace.

Naruto recoiled, jumping to his feet. He almost thought he'd been seeing things— he hadn't heard the sounds of the floorboards creaking at all— but a sudden scream drove the possibility out of his head.

It wasn't long before he'd crashed through the door, a collage of kunai darting toward him from out of no where. The blonde maneuvered around a few, catching one of them and deflecting the rest that had been in the trap. Knife still in hand, he sprinted through the remainders of the house, skittering as he turned the sharp, maze-like corners, avoiding the roots that laid in wait for him on the floor. He had managed to snatch his zori in his frenzy, not daring to stop his mad dash.

"What happened!?" he blurted out when he came to a stop, his breath heavy from the adrenaline.

A number of eyes spun toward him, one in particular shooting daggers in his direction. Kakashi seemed bluntly surprised, quickly turning back to tend to a shaken up Aki with the same kid from before right beside him— seeming strangely out of breath too— as Minato continued to stick needles into the teenager with a glare that had momentarily flickered toward the kunai still in his hand; Naruto could imagine the conclusions he was drawing, silently wishing he could sink into the wall next to him.

**Your hero complex is going to get you killed**, **squirt**, Kurama grumbled.

Just as the Yellow Flash had opened his mouth to address the elephant in the room, the ground shot with a crazy array of vibrations, sending everyone on guard. Asuma was nearby with Kurenai, the first to recover from the shock. "This was a safe house of Senju Hashirama. Nidaime-sama told my father about it years ago," the tanned shinobi filled in without a moment to spare. "The entire place is built on a root system that is sensitive to chakra that is close by, and based on that response…"

"Konoha didn't decide to let us go so easily," Kakashi finished, eyes widening. "Aki, you gave our position away!"

"It's not my fault! The shadow-person from before was sneaking around here and caught me off guard!" Kakashi instantly looked puzzled, but Naruto's face paled with understanding. The shadow from before… He cursed under his breath. Zetsu had been just a few meters away from him, and who knows where he'd gone off to by then! At least one thing was for sure, the Akatsuki member had an interest in the rebel-group for one reason or another.

"We've got no time for arguing right now! We can sort things out later," the blonde leader barked, his expression suggesting that he hadn't let Naruto slip out of his mind, "Right now, we need to get out of here. We'll make a break for the border of Wind Country sooner than expected, although we'll be going in blind."

Asuma took the lone cigarette out of his mouth, crushing the embers into the wall, creating a burning pit that was likely to spread to the rest of the area. There wasn't a point in letting the enemy obtain a perfectly functional safe house. "You guys go ahead. Kurenai and I can create a distraction, along with our newest problem." He sent a small glance to the tiny boy next to them, still trying to catch his breath. "We'll take him to the Land of Stone. I'm positive one of the priests there will take him in."

"Are you sur—" Kakashi started, obviously concerned with Kurenai's pregnancy.

She waved him off, an excited smirk lighting up her face as she glanced at her lover. It seemed they shared the same train of thought. "The helpless, trading folk who just lost their house routine works wonders. Yondaime might be a brute, but no one can get away with killing helpless civilians. We'll cross paths again. Now go! We can stall the bulk of them."

They didn't have to say it twice before Minato had ordered them off, giving his gray-haired student a gesture toward their blonde prisoner, who's one piece of weaponry had been abruptly confiscated. "You heard the man," Kakashi replied to Naruto's confused look, a kunai of his own flicking into one hand from the insides of his sleeves, the other landing roughly on the teenager's shoulder, and with a burst of gas, the smoky interior of the hideout had vanished in exchange for the forest's breeze as they reappeared, standing outside. The entire back part of the abode that stood before them had already become engulfed in flames, flashing ominously along the tall pines and oaks of the forest.

A kunai whizzed past the both of them, embedding itself roughly in the bark of a tree. Kakashi had jumped into a defensive stance in sync with Naruto, who had assumed an identical one, but a blur of yellow brought at least one of them some ease.

"We'll have to make it through the Land of Rivers by morning if we're gonna lose them," the familiar nonchalance of Minato stabbed through, a hazel-haired girl by his side. His clothes and face were smudged with some ash, bringing extra life to the blazing electric blue in his irises that jumped across all of them before settling on the only girl of the group. "Aki, I want you to lay some traps further north to make them think we're making for Ame. Meet up with Pakkun and the others from there, understood?" The girl gave her head an enthusiastic bob, seeming happy at the chance to redeem herself, and scattered into the forest.

"Kakashi, I'll stick behind and make sure that they follow her trail. If I haven't caught up with you within the next hour, don't bother waiting. And if blondie here causes any trouble—" the blue shot through Naruto's veins at the look the shinobi sent his way. "—I trust you know how to handle it. Do I make myself clear?" Naruto swallowed hard. He was pretty sure that comment was intended more to scare him than anything else, and he had to say that it was partially successful.

"Crystal… Be careful, sensei," Kakashi wished, already starting in the opposite direction..

The swift parting look was all that remained of the Konohagakure legend as he vanished into the night, a trail of leaves blowing ominously in his wake.

* * *

"We'll stop here," Kakashi said, bringing the two of them to a halt with just one sentence, Naruto panting from the trip. He hated not having access to his chakra reserves. But if anything, their part of the venture had gone smoothly, without any contact with anyone else, not even civilians.

The Land of Rivers that had sluggishly passed by behind them held up to it's name; they'd crossed at least a dozen small rivers within the past hour, and for being so close to a desert country, Naruto was surprised that there were that many. They had stopped near one of the smaller streams, probably to replenish their waning water supplies.

"We'll take a break," the lackadaisical shinobi murmured, taking a seat by the waterside. "Minato-sensei should be here soon."

"Weren't we _not_ supposed to stop for him?" Naruto questioned lowly, glancing up at the sky that was shinning a dark gray, the night stars slowly diminishing. They'd been traveling for much longer than an hour.

A single black eye lazily drew toward him, taking in the blonde sitting beside him with curiosity before hiding behind an eyelid. "You can get away with disobeying a few orders every once in awhile. Besides, I've been late before plenty of times, myself. I can give him the benefit of the doubt this once."

"Oh, really?" Naruto laughed lightly, strangely relaxing in the company of his teacher. Getting lost on the path of life was one thing that seemed to stand strong for both Kakashis.

"You can take a drink if you're thirsty," the man said, swiftly changing the subject. "The rivers here are full of water from the mountain ranges protecting Iwa. They should be fresh."

Naruto pouted at the evasion, wanting to know a little more about Kakashi rather than water but took few gulps from his cupped hands. It definitely tasted fresh. He took another handful, greedily slurping the liquid down. He hadn't realized how parched his throat was.

"You look a lot like my sensei, actually," Kakashi commented suddenly, casually taking a sip out of his canteen. The man seemed pleased with the response he got: Naruto spitting out whatever water he had drunken in a violent burst. He hurriedly moved on to pounding on his chest to stop his coughing fit.

"Wh—whatever gave you that idea!? I don't think we look anything alike, tte bayo!" the teenager spluttered.

"Hmm, maybe it's the hair." Kakashi indifferently took another swig of water. "Forget I mentioned it."

A revelation like that was pretty hard to forget. Even Kurama seemed impressed. **He's good. I'm surprised Minato hasn't made that connection yet,** the fox complimented, his eyes widening a few centimeters. Naruto agreed, still feeling like his identity had been exposed within the past few minutes. It wouldn't have been that hard of a challenge to come clean about who he really was, but that would be that he was the son of the Yondaime in a world where Minato _was_ the Yondaime, that he'd been in a battle with the very creator of chakra and had somehow been sent to an alternate dimension, happening to be put in the captivity of his father and sensei who were rebel shinobi of Konohagakure. For some reason, Naruto figured that Kakashi wouldn't have figured all of that out based on his blonde hair alone, no matter how smart he was. No. The jinchuriki would keep his cards close until he had to play them all.

But still, the sudden epiphany on Kakashi's part was unsettling, and Naruto wasn't so sure he wanted to be forced into a situation that he'd have to trust the man, especially considering the fact that his trust was running just as low as Minato's. The blonde spent another moment analyzing the Copy-nin. There was no way that he was simply being friendly toward his own prisoner, and even though Naruto had no idea how to handle it, he figured he had to do something.

"Your name was Naruto, right?" the shinobi beside him inquired, his face looking completely complacent with drinking his water, but there was no doubt that the cogs within his mind were working overtime.

"I— yes," Naruto stammered, trying to make his voice smooth but failing utterly. He'd already told him his name once; lying about it wouldn't make a difference.

"Interesting name… Alright. Naruto. Where you from?" the silver-haired shinobi greeted, pausing before letting the name roll off his tongue.

The addressed person bolted up, cutting a hand horizontally through the air to make his point, suddenly deciding to call out Kakashi on his obvious bluff. "Why do you suddenly care so much where I'm from or what my name is? You didn't seem to care much before, tte bayo!"

"Sit down, Naruto," the adult responded in a relaxed manner, not budging from his position on the grass. "I'm still in charge here."

"I don't care!" Naruto rejected, every last shred of patience he'd been wrestling with for the past two months snapping like a twig. "For giving you my name and letting you all drag me off to who-knows where, I think I'm owed an answer of my own." The teenager held his breath, fearing that he might've just pushed his luck too far, struggling to keep his determined face from slipping. If he was going to be forced to show his hand, he might as well try to get a peek at the other man's cards.

An unsettling silence dawned on the area, a few bugs dully singing to the flow of the quiet brook in front of them and the subtle yawn of the wind. Naruto felt like he'd stood forever, waiting for an answer that was looking like it might never come. Even with that, his demanding eyes never left the shinobi. The Copy-nin, on the other hand, kept his eyes closed, listening to the sounds of a waking world as if he hadn't a care in the world.

Finally, a reply came, and Naruto was practically knocked off his feet at the response.

"Fair enough," Kakashi drawled, screwing on the lid to his container and taking his time putting it back in his pouch while Naruto watched tensely, his mouth almost dropping to the floor. "A part of it is that your taijutsu style is compiled of ones that I'm familiar with, ones that aren't easy to come by or easy to learn. I'm wondering who taught them to you.

"Another, larger part of why I'm interested is—"

The teenager jumped in the next instant as a flurry of yellow appeared beside Kakashi, taking shape into a man with the sound of a thousand fleeting birds. Minato had arrived. And at the perfect moment too. Naruto cringed at his misfortune, the last bit of a hopeful sentence being lost in the wind. He was about to get a straight-up answer for once, and now, the chance was gone.

"Ah, hello there. Glad you caught up," the younger of the former Konoha-nin chirped in the meantime, his uncovered eye closed in a happy smile as if the conversation his sensei had interrupted had never existed at all. "I got you some water." He held up an extra canteen.

Minato seemed unamused with the offer, stabbing straight through the evasion. "I told you to keep going."

"You caught up, and no harm came of it." Kakashi gave his sensei a once over. "Besides, you look like you've been busy." The blonde looked worse for wear, a few blood stains marring the green of his flak vest, although obviously someone else's, and the ash from before had yet to be washed off, still contrasting darkly with the brightness of his hair and eyes. The piercing azure didn't seem enthused with Kakashi's happy-go-lucky disregard for an order.

Naruto watched the two legends battle with their eyes, one looking oddly happy and the other intensely upset, well hidden behind a layer of passivity. The teenager wanted to tell them to knock it off, but the concept of jumping in the middle of a mental war like that didn't appear like it would be good for his health, so he kept out of it. _These two are going to kill each other, datte bayo… _he hummed desperately to Kurama. The clash continued on outside, one that the jinchuriki registered with a mix of distress and disbelief.

**Better for us,** the demon observed, slicing at the watery abyss beneath himself with his claws as if he couldn't have cared less, a tail whipping at the liquid with enough force to send out a few waves. Naruto grumbled to himself. His one friend in the world was deciding to zone out when he was talking to him. He would've been more disappointed if he hadn't been expecting it.

After a short minute that seemed like it might as well have been an eternity, one of the shinobi finally stepped down with a sigh. Naruto nearly choked when he registered who it was. "We still have a few hours left before we get where we need to be, and there will be another group on our tail as soon as they figure out where we really are going," Minato conceded, begrudgingly taking the offered canteen out of Kakashi's hand, the pleased victor. "Let's get moving," he continued. "You're in charge of blondie over there, Kakashi."

"Of course, sensei," the younger adult chirped, waving along the blonde behind him who was seething at the nickname. "Hurry up. We can't rest for too long."

"What were you about to say before?" Naruto hissed to Kakashi once he'd caught up, carefully keeping his voice low enough to go unnoticed by Minato, who had taken to the treetops for a better scouting position.

"About what?"

"The 'larger part of it is'…?" Naruto started, leaving the blank for the other to fill in, patiently waiting for a response.

"Ah, that," Kakashi followed, putting his hands in his pockets. It took a stretched moment for him to reply, lazily dropping each word. "…the larger part of it isn't any of your concern. Now come on. You're falling behind." He smiled with his eyes at the frustration that crossed the blonde's face, an eyebrow twitching as he tried to keep steam from sizzling off his head. If Naruto hadn't known better, he would've thought that Kakashi enjoyed slowly driving people crazy.

**I like this Kakashi more than the old one, **Kurama grinned, thrashing his tails wildly in sweeping circles.

_You like whoever hates me, tte bayo, _Naruto mumbled sourly.

**You might be onto something with that one, kid.**

In that instant, the world gained one more sulking, blonde teenager.

* * *

"I don't remember that being there before," Minato growled, obviously unhappy with his team's latest predicament. They had made it through to the border of Wind Country smoothly, but all good things must come to an end, and now they found themselves crouched behind a large sand dune, the autumn sun peeking over the sloped horizon as relentless as ever. Before them splayed a defensive fortress fashioned out of the desert sand, the kanji for wind emblazoned on a green plaque at the top. It was fairly big, definitely tall enough to see for at least a few kilometers in any direction, around half a dozen guards posted on the top level, and that very detail was what was complicating things.

Minato swore quietly, obviously weighing his options while Kakashi did the same next to him, still monitoring Naruto out of the corner of his eye. After a quick glance around at the barren landscape, it wasn't hard to tell that there was no way they were going to be able to just march across as planned, and judging by the fortifications spent on just the one fort, it wasn't a stretch to assume that there were a string of them spanning the entire border.

Naruto patiently watched the two scrutinize the base. He felt like suggesting kage bunshins to use as a distraction, but he doubted that they wouldn't be noticed with that by at least one of the guards. For a moment, digging through seemed like another possibility, but sand was too grainy to form a sturdy tunnel. Any other ideas to him were running as dry as the sand that had snaked into his shoes, and the teenager figured he might as well just wait for an order; anything he might offer up as a possibility would likely have been shot down anyway.

"You think you could use your sharingan?" Minato proposed through a whisper, looking as if he already knew it wasn't a plausible plan.

"I don't know if I have the chakra left to get them all with a fault-proof genjutsu, especially not if a few of them are jounin," his student answered, his revealed eye sweeping through the people on the top of the tower before he dropped back down beneath their cover. "And I'd say that's a pretty safe bet. They're also out of range from here, and we'd risk giving ourselves away if we got any closer."

"Too far to use Hiraishin too…." Minato swore again, his hand that had been placed on the wall of sand in front of them clenching into a fist. It wasn't likely that a Konoha scout would've ventured out this far for them, but there was always a chance…

"Found you!"

Just as a blade swung toward him, a kunai spun into Minato's hand at the sudden appearance of the person behind them, the metal sparking a vicious orange as it collided with the opposing blade. He managed to toss the person back with a swift kick, Kakashi likewise flashing out two knives and taking a position in front of Naruto, one of the kunai angled behind his back while the other was facing forward, daring the teenager to make a move.

"Keep here for back up, Kakashi!" Minato barked, tossing one of his famed kunai after having planted one at his feet.

Meanwhile, the assailant had gracefully recovered from the blow, maneuvering into a twirl that sprayed an army of shuriken across the pit of the dune, dancing just beneath the line of sight of the Suna shinobi stationed only a few hundred meters away. The metallic stars were easily blocked by Minato, but before the last one had even reached them, the enemy's hands flew into signs, a cloud of sand stirring from the dune's floor that obscured their figure.

Another fast movement on the opposing end irritated the desert basin, a waver of the dusty grains the only sign that anyone had been there at all.

In the next second, a kunai streaked through the smoke around the mysterious shinobi, a war-like demon of a blonde sparking back to reality just in time to catch the dagger and deal a few crushing blows, forcing the assailant to abandon the hand signs to go on the defensive. And just like that, the battle evolved into a close range clash of taijutsu and dizzying twirls that brought the dune's floor to life in an angry swirl of dust and wind.

Watching the action happen from afar, it was hard for Naruto to keep himself from jumping in, the two shinobi looking evenly matched when it came to hand-to-hand combat. All he could tell between the flurry was that the opposing warrior wasn't wearing the standard Konohagakure garb or even an ANBU uniform, but aside from that, the person preserved their identity, a thick, white head scarf wrapped neatly around their head that almost covered their entire torso as well. The teenager guessed they probably were a hired assassin. The mystery was surprisingly irritating, but then again, so was waiting for someone to finish a fight while you were stuck as a spectator.

Kakashi was taking the apparent uselessness much better, glancing over his shoulder on occasion to the fort behind, the top hiding just beneath the mountain of sand. He looked fairly assured that they hadn't been discovered, but the longer they stayed sitting ducks, the faster the luxury of anonymity was disappearing like grains in an hourglass, gradually slipping away.

Back in the flow of battle, lively, bright sparks shot from screeching metal as the two shinobi locked blades, Minato managing to slip both of the enemy's knifes in between the prongs of his own. Both people glanced from the kunai back to one another, a devious grin flashing across the blonde's face. The single pair of hazel eyes that glared through the scarf widened at the look, the person about to make a jump back and abandon the lock, but the realization came too late. Within the next second, Minato had moved one of his two hands away from the kunai handle and pressed it to the flat end of his blade, altering the pressure he had been applying to the knifes trapped within his, and reversed the previous forward direction in exchange for a sideways one, overwhelming and effectively snapping the opponent's weapons like a sai*.

The chunks of splintered metal spun in the air, trapped within the limbo of battle as Minato was one step away from a finishing blow. He speedily retrieved another kunai from the pouch on his thigh after releasing the first with his extra hand, ready to bring an end to the unexpected fight.

Even without the daggers at hand, the assailant refused to go down without a fight, dancing beneath, above, and around every slash and kick the blonde made, at one point, even managing to land on the flat end of his blade and launch a short-lived counterattack.

Everything was back to square one it seemed as both shinobi reverted to their original stances, pointedly staring one another down as they cautiously shuffled in mirrored directions. The sand slowly began to descend back to earth, hissing at the wind as it dragged it along the ground. Stabbing the desert with its rays, the orb of the red sun that was emerging joined the audience of Kakashi and Naruto. The light giddily reflected off the golden desert dust and cast lengthy shadows on all the people it could touch, but nothing within nature's arsenal would distract the two warriors, frozen in the stalemate of battle. Even death's doors hardly seemed able to break apart the glare that held the two together. It would take something else entirely…

A breathy bark resounded through the desert.

"Hey! Cut it out you two!"

Naruto could hardly believe his eyes as an exhausted and sweaty Pakkun bounded up to the assailant, letting himself fall flat on his stomach once he teetered to a stop.

"Darn it, Pakkun! It was just getting good," the unknown person growled, shattering the seriousness of the moment, shoving the new kunai they had snatched to replenish the broken ones back inside their pouch.

Both Naruto and Kakashi blinked in confusion, dumbfounded at the sudden announcement. "…it's… a girl?" Naruto thought aloud, still in shock. Not like it wasn't possible, but the thought that a konoichi— other than Tsunade— had given the Yellow Flash of Konoha a run for his money was like a slap in the face. Strangely, Minato seemed like he'd actually been waiting for such an exposé, brushing some of the sand from his clothes, still ashen and bloody from their retreat earlier that night.

"Sorry, Kakashi, Minato. I figured you would be going through this way," Pakkun apologized, not having caught his breath yet. "Thought it might be nice to have an escort, although I wasn't planning on having an ambush sent on you." The tired pug spared a look over the top of the dune. Luckily, the dispute had been quiet and far enough to go unnoticed by the sentries posted along the border.

"I was checking to make sure they were legitimate. You can never be too careful," the mysterious person justified, dismissing it with a flick of a hand, scarf still secretively tied on.

"I told you their scent was legitimate," Pakkun grumbled in the usual, gravely tone, his eyes lazily moving to the person next to him, not bothering to get up from the desert floor.

Kakashi officially arrived by the clump of shinobi with Naruto on his heels. "Thank you for the thought, Pakkun." His black eye glanced toward the konoichi, a guess of her identity glinting across the iris while a piece of silence strained the dry air.

"It's been awhile," Minato entered knowingly, breaking the fragile quiet. He folded his arms with a cocked eyebrow. "Surprised you're still around."

"Of course I am. Besides," the woman started, pulling down the top to her head scarf. "I heard you needed to cash in on that favor I owe you, Yellow Flash."

* * *

*Sai: originating as farming tools in Japan, sai are three pronged, short-range weapons that were commonly used to break samurai blades.

* * *

**Author's Note: **

I originally didn't have that last fight scene planned at all in this entire story, but you guys have been so patient with me, I figured one was due (and one with Minato, yes xD). Consider it a reward for putting up with me, so I hope you enjoyed it. : )

I feel obligated to give you all some more closure with two points I made in this chapter, so if you don't mind listening to my mini-rant…

1) Yes, the mystery person is a girl (she is not an OC.) That does not mean I plan on shipping her; the only parings would be canon and PROVEN ones like Kurenai and Asuma— none at all for Naruto and none for Kakashi either. Besides, I suck at writing romantic things, so even if you wanted your OTP in this, you'd come to regret it sooner or later (=A=).

2) The few random OCs (*cough* Aki *cough*) I do have floating around are not why Black Zetsu is appearing around Minato's group. I would not in a million years pull a load of crap on you all like that, so if you were concerned, don't be. Aki is there to give background info, foreshadow, or fit other roles that wouldn't be suitable for canon characters. She goes away whenever I have no use for her (*cough* right now).

Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter!

If it does not say it is discontinued, it is not, so please follow and review until then. Thanks!

Minatochan2


	10. The Hero of Suna: Shakuton no Pakura!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the characters, places, or… everything mentioned in this. This is fictional, and if you're just finding that out, I am severely concerned for you (. - .)

*side note: Pakura's back-story was only given in the anime, so if you're a manga reader, you're in for a treat.

* * *

**Chapter 10:** The Hero of Suna: Shakuton no Pakura!

The woman smoothed back her forest-green hair as she left her scarf hanging around her shoulders, the last comment she made swinging in the air like a pendulum. Naruto blinked at the newcomer's face. Brown, pupil-less irises stabbed the squad leader with a challenging tint, and her entire body language screamed that she wanted to finish their fight uninterrupted, her breath unusually even for having been engaged in a brawl just a minute earlier. She definitely was tough if she had the guts to straight up attack someone as strong as Minato, but the few pointers that the teenager could scavenge didn't explain her still-anonymous identity or how she would know the ex-Konoha-nin, especially not the bold statement of the Suna hitai-ate.

Sadly, greetings between the shinobi had been abandoned altogether as the larger issue of getting over the border discretely had yet to be addressed, much to Naruto's dismay as he was left in the dark about who their guide was. It was a rarity to meet someone he didn't recognize, but he wished he at least had some idea.

"Your friend here told me you might be needing me," the konoichi said slyly, a ray of confidence lighting her expression. "Looks like he was right." The hinted pug mumbled as he pulled himself to his feet.

"You couldn't have come at a better time either," Kakashi admitted. "We have to get out of the Land of Rivers and into Wind as quickly as possible."

"Right now? You all couldn't have waited until nightfall— or at least come earlier?" The konoichi inquired, clearly aghast as they had all filed back up to their post at the top of the sand dune. Naruto took his time, scrutinizing the stranger from behind, but he got no closer to figuring her out as he already had.

"We weren't afforded the luxury of time, Pakura-san," Minato apologized, glancing at the experienced shinobi, her hair tied tidily into a bun, a decorative pin stuck through its heart. "And I wasn't aware that they'd constructed so many forts around the border."

The woman nodded, tugging the edge of her scarf up to cover her mouth, her eyes flashing above it through the defensive building, analyzing every last point that could be a potential blind spot. "They've built more in the East recently. Your Hokage has made the Kazekage more paranoid than usual. I can imagine he's just waiting for a skirmish to break out around here. If you had come a few weeks ago, there wouldn't have been much of a problem sneaking you over."

"There wasn't the need a few weeks ago," Kakashi joined bluntly, sitting with his back to the wall of sand, placidly eyeing the sun up above and Naruto behind him, who was eagerly listening in, happy that he didn't have to do it covertly. Since they'd encountered their latest but still mysterious member, things were beginning to liven, even the shy sun emerging completely from the curtain of the horizon.

Pakura looked up to the purple, cloudless ceiling, meticulously noting the length of their shadows and picking up some of the dusty grains at her feet. She sat back against the sand dune after a few minutes, turning to Minato with an optimistic look in her eyes. "I think I might be able to give you a hand. It's a long shot, but it could work."

"Any help you have for us would be appreciated," Pakkun drawled, the tiredness of his eyes nearly identical to Kakashi's.

The metal of her headband glinted in the sun as the Suna-nin leaned forward, demanding that everyone listen closely. "If we're lucky, we should be able to get through without anyone ever knowing we were here." The woman said, spearheading the main issue while letting the handful of sand she had gathered escape through her fingers. "There's a natural phenomena called Gan'u* that is happening right around now. It's caused by the strong Northern Winds coming from Earth Country that drag rocks and topsoil off from the ranges up there, but the important thing is that it always instigates a lot of sandstorms throughout Wind Country, dangerous ones at that."

"You're thinking of using it as a natural smoke screen." Minato smirked, instantly catching what the konoichi was thinking, looking impressed for the first time since Naruto had seen him. He seemed magnanimous toward the Suna-nin, even though she was clearly showing him up when it came to concocting plans on her territory.

Earlier, Pakura had mentioned some favor that she owed him. Naruto dully wondered what it was. No time was offered for pondering it, though, as the jinchuriki was hanging on every word that was being shared, but he still was confused as to who this stranger was. The name itself hadn't rung any bells, and asking seemed out of the question with his current status as a prisoner. He had to hand it to her though; Pakkun had been smart fishing her up as a guide. She definitely knew her way around the desert.

"We're going to have to start up our own sandstorm, I'll take it," Kakashi guessed as the conversation continued, looking quite the pessimist. It wouldn't be easy to pull off a trick that massive in the light of the morning.

"Let me worry about that. This wouldn't be the first time I've whipped up a sandstorm," Pakura reassured smartly. "All you need to be concerned with is making it across in one piece. There will probably be a few rocks that are in the mix— it's part of what makes it dangerous, but the guards up at the top of the fort won't be able to see you under that type of heavy cover, and hopefully, they will have to abandon their positions entirely. I'll try to keep the storm in front of you like a shield for as long as I can, but at one point, it will be out of my hands, so you'll be on your own.

"I'm sure you already know this, but once you're in the clear, hug the sand dunes until you reach a safe point. Their shadows should be able to keep you from being noticed if the sentries should happen to get a clear view. Are there any problems with that plan?"

"No, but are you coming with us?" Minato questioned, ever attentive to loop-holes. "How are you going to get across if you're busy covering for us?"

Pakura glanced toward the former Konoha-nin, brushing off the inquiry. "Don't worry about that. I'll make a break for the first cover I see. Figured I might as well tag along with your team while you're in Wind. Why?"

"I've got a better idea," the thorough blonde offered. "I take it you plan on using a Futon-jutsu to create this sandstorm, right?" The hazel-eyed woman nodded, interested in his train of thought. "I know a few jutsu of that nature. I'll help you out, and then I can use my Hiraishin to transport the both of us to the others before the storm disperses."

The three adults exchanged glances, looking for any arguments against the change but no opposition arose.

"I have a Wind affinity too, tte bayo."

The surprised group turned to look to the previously quiet teenager, sitting a meter outside of their circle with an expression that had gradually turned to boredom. He didn't understand the point of being shunned from the planning when he could still here every word but decided not to mention it.

"I've been meaning to ask: who's the kid?" Pakura murmured, brushing one of her orange-tipped side-bangs out of her face as a strong gust of wind blew by, pointing to the jinchuriki.

"A shinobi from Konohagakure," Kakashi answered, getting to his feet, Pakkun by his side.

"I'm right here. And I'm not a kid, tte bayo," Naruto added insolently. He received a strange smile from Kakashi at that, appearing almost nostalgic.

In the meantime, a snort erupted from Pakura, who closed the short distance between her and the teenager, bending down to his level. "Well, it's a good thing you're all grown up then. You must have learned to pay attention to some friendly advice in your long lifetime, so take mine." Her voice slipped by in a flat and uncaring tone, "I've seen what Suna-nin do to shinobi under the Hokage, and it's not a pretty sight. You'd be wise to stay with these people for as long as you can, understood?"

Naruto nodded, ignoring the bead of sweat that had suddenly skittered down his face, having forgotten just how terrifying women could be when they wanted to. The teenager could understand why she and Minato got along so well; they certainly did threaten people the same, demanding way.

"And if you think I'm taking off that seal so you can 'help', you can forget it, blondie," Minato chimed icily. Naruto figured that if anyone could make a nickname like "blondie" sound like an insult, it was the only person who called him that. He willed for the group leader to sense his irritation through a displeased glare.

Sadly for him, Minato was immune to it as he stood up from his crouched position and rubbed at some of the ash glued to his jaw line. The teenager flinched when he noticed the darkness of the bruise that had been there just a few hours earlier had faded away. Naruto furrowed his eyebrows. The man must've healed it when he hadn't been looking.

"Let's get to it then," Pakura interrupted, placing her hands on her hips, her prior threatening pitch easing away to a more competitive one. "Keep in mind, Yellow Flash, you may have mastered chakra form, but chakra nature's my territory. You ready to get shown up?"

Said person shook his head with a sigh at the rhetorical question. "We'll give you a signal when we're in position, Kakashi. Keep an eye out for it," Minato advised before catching up with the Suna-nin that had already darted off under the cover of the dune, a trail of dust left behind her.

"Guess it's just us then, Naruto."

Pakkun piped up from the floor, "Don't forget about me, Kakashi."

"Oh, you sticking around?" The man glanced down at the pug.

"I have some important news from Earth. It can wait until we get over, but it's fairly urgent."

Kakashi gave an understanding bob of his head, beckoning Naruto over to him. The blonde obeyed and took the spot next to the sharingan-user, keeping his head hidden. Neither said anything, but while Kakashi was watching for some sign that they were to get into action, Naruto was watching him, sizing him up. The blonde wasn't sure if the shinobi was on his side or not. He had been acting oddly friendly toward him, and even if he had his "reasons", Naruto felt that the man wanted something from him, that perhaps Minato had planted him to get close enough to dig up something about the jinchuriki's supposed "espionage plan".

He let his cerulean eyes drift back toward the unforgiving desert. As much as no one gave him much trust, Naruto found himself giving Minato's team even less, regardless of his previous relationship with them from where he was from. Zetsu's few appearances wherever they happened to be were still tattooed on his mind though, and until he had any reason not to, he'd try not to cause too much trouble, intrigued by what purpose the creep had in popping up if it wasn't to kill him. And even though the idea was reversed, if he had to protect the very people who had captured him, he would do it without even thinking as long as it hurt the Akatsuki member's operation. But until he showed up again, keeping vigilant and fairly obedient was the best Naruto could do.

Naruto also held the faint hopes that maybe he could somehow convince either Kakashi or Minato of his innocence. He recognized the small hint of faith he was being spared, even though it was probably more confidence in the fact that he wouldn't be able to make a getaway— which was annoyingly true.

The blonde shielded his eyes from a sudden beam of sunlight that shot through his pupils. He searched for the glare, nudging the person next to him. A swirl of dust was gradually forming from where the beam had been reflected, ominously overgrowing the security of the hill of sand where the Futon-users no doubt were.

"That's the signal," Kakashi agreed, shifting into a low crouch. "Get ready to follow my lead."

The single nin-ken of the team hopped next to Naruto. It seemed like he'd have a guard in Pakkun, the blonde laughed inwardly. The image of the tired pug trying to keep track of him in a sand storm was a pitiful one at best.

"What are you smiling about?" the dog grumbled accusingly.

"Nothing!" Naruto gulped, feeling sheepish for having let his amusement with the thought pass onto his face, quickly turning back to Kakashi for a green light to make a move. It came sooner than he thought, a small flash of the shinobi's hand all he needed to see to pounce out from behind their cover. He almost halted all other motions when he caught sight of the condition of the fort.

The angry whir of the desert screamed below, shredding the peaceful morning into a thousand pieces as it clawed at the base. Peeling away the outsides of the structure, the mass dragged in more unwilling sand as it slid across the earth, flattening everything its fangs could reach. The roar of the wind drowned out every sound in the empty desert, ricocheting in the blonde's ears and throughout the rest of the landscape as its breadth sluggishly spread across the entire area like a gaping mouth, consuming the innocent sky in a cloud that left the rest of the world in a shadow. Its faint tail snaked back to the Futon-users' post, but the massive, swirling wave left the origins a problem that Naruto doubted anyone cared about.

Pakkun and Kakashi had jumped up beside him, spending a split second to also marvel at the maelstrom, but quickly moved on. Naruto joined, hopping down the side of the dune before breaking into sprint, the pug struggling to keep up at his side as he past him. He couldn't blame him either. Another secondary gust of wind had burst out, enough to bring even him to his knees, the loose ends of his clothing tugging in its direction. The shinobi and nin-ken keeping neck and neck with him had also held on, chakra proving useless as the ground was constantly being ripped out from beneath them, and took off again once they had regained their balance.

Naruto could already feel the sand's claws digging into his skin and causing the entire world around him to grow fuzzy with billions of dots like tiny daggers, each as sharp and dangerous as the other when combined. It was becoming impossible to see at all, and as much as Naruto recognized that there were other ways to see outside of his eyes, his hearing and touch had likewise been torn from him, and any sennin modes were out of the question. For all he knew, the very base they were trying to avoid could've been right in front of his eyes.

He wondered how Kakashi was managing in the chaos. Amid the whirring blizzard, a spot of red flickered to his right when he looked. _Sharingan_, Naruto applauded, instantly recognizing the technique. At least one person could tell where they were going. All he needed to do was head in the same direction as him, and things would turn out alright. But it wasn't long before that thought had occurred that even his own hands weren't visible, much less the Copy-nin, and forward eventually became synonymous with backwards in the desert's vortex. A sharp rock left a fleeting bite across his whiskered cheek, the new line stinging as grains clotted the wound, thousands of nipping crystals irritating it like salt.

And after what might as well have been hours spent lost in the apocalyptic fervor, it gradually began to ease and unclench the three prisoners it had from the deadly grasp, a few wisps of sand regretfully releasing the embrace late as they were pulled away by the main storm. There was no time for waiting, even though Naruto was pleased that he had gotten further than both Kakashi and Pakkun without his normal chakra levels, and the mad dash continued, the footprints they had left behind quickly refilling. The small group all took careful note of their enemy: the fort that was also speedily bouncing back from the sand's attack. They had a ways to go before they were back in the clear, and it was a test of luck to think that they could make it. No one ever said that Naruto hadn't pushed his luck before though. That case was no different.

The teenager half dove for the shaded area behind one of the newly carved mountains of sand, an exhausted Kakashi and nin-ken quickly by his side, left panting from the successful, but nonetheless difficult, procedure.

Naruto propped himself up by placing his hands on his thighs. He didn't think they'd been noticed, but the blonde didn't have it in him to look; he felt like he could've collapsed on the ground and slept for years, and his pounding heart was concurring, crashing against his ribcage.

After a few minutes of silent recovery, Kakashi lifted his head and looked around, sand stuck to every piece of fabric and texture available on him. The jinchuriki was certain that he must've looked the same. "That cut looks like a nasty one," the Copy-nin commented breathily, gesturing toward the fresh one on Naruto's face.

"It's a battle scar, tte bayo," the teenager laughed jokingly, his voice still strained from their race. He could've sworn Kakashi had shaken his head with an amused smile, but when Naruto glanced back up as he felt someone's attention centered on him, both Pakkun and his summoner were registering him with large eyes. The blonde slowly reached up to his face, wondering what was causing them to be so surprised. He cringed at what he felt. His cut had healed.

_How?_

Kurama looked just as shocked, having no answer when the teenager begged for one without having to say a word. They both knew it couldn't have been possible; the seal on his forearm shouldn't have allowed that much of the fox's chakra to leek out, at least, not without a consequence.

Kakashi's eyes were torn from one blonde to another as Minato and Pakura suddenly tumbled out of a Hiraishin, somersaulting to a stop. For someone so calm, Minato almost looked stunned— like he'd suddenly realized something disturbing and wasn't sure how to handle it, but he quickly snapped out of his daze, speedily counting heads with his eyes and getting to his feet with all the calmness required of a leader. "Good. We're all here."

"You boys have fun?" the Suna-nin grinned wickedly, reclined complacently on her hands.

After a small look at Kakashi, almost as if he was offering him a promise that he wouldn't mention what he'd just seen, Pakkun gave a sarcastic reply. "You couldn't have made that storm any worse for us to get through?"

"Had to make it realistic. I didn't know you all were so afraid to get your hands dirty." Pakura swept off a layer of sand that had clumped onto her clothing, readjusting her lavender arm warmers while ignoring the pointed glare of the pug.

"You made it real alright," he grumbled with his usual tiredness, shaking out the sand that had gotten underneath his blue vest and in his fur.

Kakashi, who had been measuring up Naruto with a blank stare, finally broke the contact and turned to his frustrated nin-ken. "Pakkun. You mentioned you had something urgent to tell us from Earth."

Everyone instantly was interested as Pakkun recalled his message. "Yes. I managed to find Kenta's group, but they had been ambushed when they were trying to sneak through the south by Iwa-nin. They hadn't been able to gather much since they were found out pretty early and were thinking of sneaking around through Ame to rejoin you all there within the next two days."

Minato hummed thoughtfully, retying the hitai-ate that he had used to give the signal a few minutes earlier. "Understood. I guess we know where we're headed now at least."

"Minato, there's something else." The dog faltered for a moment, suddenly sounding somber. "Kenta…he didn't make it."

A stretch of quiet reigned, Kakashi and his sensei both appearing greatly disappointed. Pakura and Naruto looked equally lost, but neither dared to say anything, patiently waiting for the moment to pass. "Thank you, Pakkun," Kakashi breathed, the nin-ken dispersing in a cloud of smoke after a short nod.

"Pakura-san, if you're staying, do you think you could take us toward Amegakure?" Minato asked. Any grief had quickly passed from his voice as if it had never even been there, covered by an unempathetic mask.

"Of course," she responded bluntly, the competitive humor having dissolved. "We'll have to go slower than I'm sure you forest-folk used to since this is desert, but if we make good timing today and don't get hit with any blizzards, we should be able to cross there by around this time tomorrow.

"Let's hope we don't. I don't think I could survive another storm like that," Kakashi beamed half-heartedly, pulling his hitai-ate over his sharingan, the single black eye returning to its watch. Everyone seeming ready to move again, Naruto clambered to his feet, his hand still hovering over where his cheek had healed. He'd make a point to talk to Kurama about it when he had the time, but until then, he had to catch up to the people who had already started moving out.

A separate pair of azure eyes took him in sternly as he past by to travel beside Kakashi, the whir of the twister they'd summoned fading in the distance but still unpredictable.

* * *

The blanket of the night sky sparkled above, the ghost of the unassuming new moon looming over the desert. A crowd of stars were sown in a trail into the fabric of the twilight, gleaming dozens of colors, brighter against the black felt. No crickets chirped; no animals rustled; gusts of the bitter wind were the only things that lingered, weaving in and out of the land, caressing the layers of desert dust with a silver hand.

Naruto enjoyed the coolness of the breeze; the chill beat against his overworked muscles, and the thin fingers of the wind combed through his wild hair, both pleasant sensations after the long day of travel. His zori lay forgotten next to him. They were hard to wear with all the sand that had gotten caught in their crevices, and no matter how much he beat them out, the golden grains refused to leave, so he'd given up, deciding to enjoy the tranquillity of the night instead while lying on his back.

He could hardly remember when he had been there last, the kazekage-rescue mission the final time he could recall being in Wind Country. Gaara had crossed into the blonde's thoughts more than once since they'd arrived. Since the Yondaime Kazekage was alive, he remained hopeful that the fellow jinchuriki could be around somewhere as well.

Naruto retreated into his mindscape to avoid the sudden pang of homesickness that was echoing painfully in his chest. An orange fox trotted past him along the gloomily glowing sewer. The demon had been muttering and pacing non-stop since the incident earlier, not bothering to make any eye contact with the teenager, focused solely on solving the mystery of what had happened.

Naruto stepped to the side to let Kurama pass by again, a giant claw crashing down in from of him. It was almost like his friend had a thorn stuck in his paw that he couldn't get rid of by sitting down. The blonde sucked in a breath and voiced his question, _Thought of anything yet?_

A pair of vibrant red eyes spun toward him. **A few, but I'm not sure of any of them.** The beast turned when he reached the closed door of the seal where he had been held for over sixteen years.

Naruto sighed as he sunk down onto the water's surface, glad that he could use some form of chakra in his mind at least. _Mind sharing one?_

Kurama paused in his repetitive journey, glancing at the teenager. **…no.** He picked up where he left off and began pacing back and forth once again.

Naruto pouted, soundlessly swinging his head to follow the fox's motions. The blonde panicked to duck beneath a stray tail that had almost cut off his head and collided with the steel wall. Kurama hardly seemed to notice. _Alright, _Naruto yelped, not wanting to stick around his flustered partner if there wasn't a point. _Do you have anything that you'd like to share with me at least?_

**Hiraishin,** the demon muttered, not stopping.

_What?_

After another lap, Kurama finally began to settle, sitting down roughly near the jinchuriki. **Hiraishin.**

_Yeah, I heard you the first time, tte bayo. What about it?_ Naruto shuffled closer to the fox, arranging his legs in front of him.

**Your alternative tou-san intertwined the justu-shiki* of his Hiraishin into the same seal that's halting the majority of your chakra flow.** Naruto nodded slowly to show he followed. **The single second that some of my chakra leaked was during the same one Minato teleported to that very jutsu-shiki. It's _possible_ that the two seals combined overwhelmed one another…**

Naruto closed his eyes in thought, folding his arms. _Yeah, but he used his Hiraishin yesterday, and he still wound up by me without anything happening._

Kurama growled, the bothersome mental thorn still lodged in his foot. **The other time was through one of the inscriptions on his kunai. This morning was through the fuuinjutsu on your arm.**

Naruto opened his eyes wide, an idea coming to mind. _Oh! So whenever he uses the Hiraishin inscription in my pesky seal, it weakens it? That means that if I can time it right, I could break it!_

**Reign it in, turd. You're getting ahead of yourself!** the fox demanded, but Naruto had already jumped to his feet in excitement, grinning happily at the hopeful revelation.

It wasn't until a new thought dawned on him that teenager's smile faltered, oblivious to the fox's annoyed barks. _But if you figured out what happened, why are you still so concerned, Kurama?_

The big fox sighed his aggravation before he continued. **As much as that's what I believe happened and as much as you could _possibly_ break Minato's fuuinjutsu if you knew exactly when he would be coming to you, which would be hard enough as it stands, there was… something else. Something that I can't understand.** Despite all of Naruto's hard work to get the demon to stop, Kurama meandered to his feet and once again began to stalk the insides of the sewer, his orange fur tainted gold in the reflective radiance of the water.

Naruto decided to leave it at that, returning to the desert scene. A protective overhang extended over his head, hovering about a hundred meters above the ground. Around an hour earlier, their guide had directed them toward a bluff she remembered that would provide some shelter for the night, one that seemed would be a full one as Ame was less than a day away. Even with the next, generous hours dedicated to rest, the blonde had as much success finding sleep as he had the night before.

Naruto turned onto his side toward the flickering fire that sat in the center of the camp. It was a strange idea, but that was the first time the blonde had been allowed to spend the night since he'd been captured without being secluded in a separate location. Then again, finding a different, isolated place in a desert would've been like finding a needle in a stack of hay.

Naruto gradually lifted his eyes from the flame and glanced around to the people with him.

Minato had his eyes closed, sitting upright against the base of the bluff. He looked almost as serious resting as he did when he was awake as the fire's light played on his face, and for the first time, the jinchuriki noticed some of the faint age lines drawn on the insides of his eyes. The blonde who had always seemed untouchable looked like he easily could have been in his forties, and Naruto couldn't help but feel a little sympathetic toward him. To have been able to be touched by the worries of the world in sleep, something truly awful must have been haunting him.

Naruto shifted his gaze toward the other former Konoha-nin. It was funny how the man still slept in the same position as the Copy-nin he knew. He was asleep on his side, seeming peaceful with the ground as his bed, but the teenager was sure the man would've woken and slashed his throat if he got too close. A mischievous grin crossed his face at the distant memory of he, Sakura, and Sasuke, an unwilling accomplice, creeping over to their dreaming sensei, armed with black sharpies, and the sheer horror expressed on all their faces when he had nearly cut off a smaller Naruto's head. Sakura hadn't let him live it down for days after the fact.

The blonde's smile faded as he rolled back to face the empty sky, the sprinkle of red, blue, and white stars sparkling in a trail that shot across the sky. As beautiful as it was, the brilliant twilight seemed dull and barren against the portrait of the desert sand. It was missing the familiar Konohagakure trees, whose leaves could catch all the light and magnify it tenfold. The more he thought about it, the more Naruto realized there was no place quite like his home in the forest. Suna was too sandy, Kiri was too misty, Kumo was too cloudy, and Iwa was too…earthy.

He sighed, struggling to force the nostalgia from his mind in an eternal and unsuccessful battle.

"Can't sleep?"

Naruto casually dragged his gaze from the starry sky to the speaker, perched atop a pillar of stone, multiple of the same rocks littering the base of the plateau. Pakura aloofly tilted her head in an upward motion to one of the columns nearby. "If you're not going to sleep, you might as well come up here, so I can keep an eye on you."

The teenager didn't argue, the prospects of rest grim anyway, and leaped up to the indicated spot. As he situated himself, the memory of similar pillars on Mount Myoboku streaked through his brain. He noted that those had been much taller— and easily much sharper, but the thought remained as his eyes strode back to the Suna-nin, the untouched insignia of an "i" shining in the absence of the moon. Naruto watched her expectantly, skeptical of the unknown konoichi.

"You know," she started, her calm eyes never leaving the empty spot that belonged to the moon. "I've traveled many places in my lifetime, but I could never find somewhere with as beautiful a night sky as the deserts of Suna."

The blonde soundlessly studied the woman, unsure where she was planning on taking the unheralded conversation.

"I've also met many Konoha shinobi under the Yondaime Hokage, but none of them have ever been quite like you." Hazel, cynical irises pressed for Naruto to reply.

"I've been told something like that before, tte bayo," he responded bluntly. The dialogue threw him for a loop, and he wasn't sure what the Suna-nin was planning to accomplish with it.

"I can imagine…" The konoichi nodded, distantly dissecting every word of what he was saying. "So… how did _you_ come to meet the Yellow Flash?"

Naruto had been patiently waiting for such a question. "A bad misunderstanding. It's a long story," he brushed off the inquiry smoothly.

Pakura nodded thoughtfully once again, carefully unwrapping the scarf around her neck and setting it in her lap.

"How about you?"

The woman stopped arranging her cloth, her eyes glinting with faint surprise. Naruto couldn't tell if she was interested that he'd had the courage to return the question or that he'd cared enough to. Perhaps she'd expected him to already know the tale…

"Similarly to you, mine is also a long story."

Naruto rested back on his hands at the evasion. Something about the way she was cautiously laying and planning every sentence told him that she wanted him to ask. "I've got time," he pushed, still observing her with an equal amount of suspicion to that of what she was giving him.

The Suna-nin returned to folding her milky scarf and meticulously placed it in front of her as if it were a holy relic. Once she finished, her vision swept back to the blonde nearby, analyzing every detail about his body language and appearance. "I have one more question for you first," she mentioned, sight still glued to him, "If I like how you respond, then I'll tell you. Sound fair?"

The teenager's eyebrows turned upward, synthesizing all the ways that this could slowly spin downhill for him. His curiosity led him to take the risk regardless, and he agreed.

It seemed that just the acceptance was good enough as the konoichi smirked slyly, inquiring even though it looked as if she'd already gotten her answer. "What is your nindo?"

Naruto flinched, taken aback at the simplicity. He'd been waiting for something much harder to answer, something that would give away whatever secrets she thought he might be withholding. Once he'd gathered himself, he leaned forward, a cheeky grin flashing along his mouth as he reminisced all the times he'd said the exact statement.

"I never give up!" he smiled, pride swelling in his chest.

Pakura's face remained blank as she returned her eyes back to the mounds of sand, hibernating beneath the blanket of the night. "Interesting choice," she hummed to herself, deep in thought, but the longer she didn't provide a response, her mind elsewhere beyond the desert's mountains, the tenser Naruto grew, silently fearing that somehow his answer wasn't deemed worthy. He held onto his doubts about what the konoichi's goals were but decided to wait and see, letting himself be reeled into her trap, if it even was one, and dig his way out from there.

"Years ago, I was considered a hero in my village," Pakura began suddenly, her irises and thoughts remaining somewhere out of sight. "I had stopped an attack of Iwagakure on Suna and was highly revered as one of the strongest shinobi of my village: Shakuton no Pakura; the Hero of Sunagakure.

"But for all the fame across my home and elsewhere, politics slowly crept into my life, and I was removed from the battlefield, removed from where my comrades needed me, to go on a diplomatic meeting with Kirigakure." The line of her jaw tightened, but the growing emptiness of her vision stayed the same, unwavering in its focus as she said every sentence passionately. "I never suspected anything of the notion; it would make sense to send a well-known warrior as a goodwill ambassador. But I quickly came to realize that my purpose was not to make peace but, instead, to bring my birthplace one step closer to war — a step that came in an ambush that had been set for me by Kiri-nin, and I was left for dead.

"But an unexpected person stepped in and salvaged my life."

"The Yellow Flash," Naruto breathed, entranced by what he'd heard but quickly reminded himself that it could be a trap.

Pakura's head whipped toward the teenager at the interjection, her expression almost looking as if she hadn't known that she'd had a listener, let alone an attentive one. "No," she rejected quietly, rotating back to the horizon. "The person that brought me back from the brink of death was someone else entirely, someone that was — and still is — known as the Yondaime Hokage."

Naruto's intrigue in the tale piqued, his eyes widening at the twist, but the Suna-nin continued, oblivious to him.

"When I awoke, he told me of my village's betrayal. Both Suna and Kiri had staged the entire meeting to assassinate me and then blamed Iwagakure for the incident to add fire to the escalating war between us. He informed me that I no longer had a future in the place I called home and offered me two options: I could return to Suna, the very village that would no doubt be my downfall if the ambush had not been an indicator. Or I could join his ranks of clandestine operatives and share with him everything I knew about my birthplace."

She patiently noted the person next to her to check if he was listening. If anything was going to be heard of her story, she looked intent on making sure it was the next few lines. Satisfied with what she saw of the watchful blonde, she continued, sowing intense meaning into every word.

"I had heard about the man, though, a shadow that hid in the background of every decision Konohagkure made, malicious and unforgiving. With that in mind, I rejected his offer, and went on my way.

"But the hokage had made one correct observation: I could not return to Sunagakure without my life being placed in danger. I spent months lost inside this very place, struggling to understand the betrayal of my own country, searching blindly for what purpose I had left in the world," she spoke dazedly, her irises softly sweeping the landscape splayed out before her.

"But as I traveled, I had forgotten that with my denial, I had made an enemy out of a very powerful individual, an individual that did not take my decision well. He sent more of his subordinates to request that I rethink my answer, and each time I rebuked them. But a kage could not let a loose end like myself remain as such, especially if I decided to return to Suna and inform the council of his desire to learn their secrets, and over the months, his attempts to change my mind became attempts on my life."

"Even in my lost state of consciousness, I managed to remind each of his assassins why I had once been hailed as a legend. At one point, however, a very special team was sent after me, the leader knowledgeable of a jutsu style that I thought had been lost since the fall of Senju Hashirama, and I was certain that my defeat was assured."

The konoichi moved her gaze upward to the heavens, the star dust glistening a pure violet, brought to life by the many stars lying amongst it. "But it seemed fate had found some importance in my life as another shinobi of Konoha aided me, asking nothing in return.

"It was mere coincidence that I met the Yellow Flash that day, but having seen a person who had been wronged much more than I still find meaning in their existence, striving to remedy the broken state of the world we are forced into, I found the answer that I had never known I'd been looking for and could never find in this desert alone. I found my own nindo, the belief that an act of cruelty can still bear fruit to an act of kindness, and even though I am still bound to the sand of my homeland, I now understand that I can tread on the same earth as the very people who wronged me and remain someone stronger than they could ever hope to be…"

The desert wind blew peacefully through the onset of the quiet between the two shinobi, one wandering aimlessly though the memories of the past while the other looked on, left without words to follow the conclusion to the tale.

Pakura slowly came back to herself and registered the stunned teenager a little ways away with a bare countenance. "As empty as the desert is, you always leave changed after traveling in it for long enough; it can be a place where you lose yourself, but it can also be a place where you find yourself. It all depends on which you choose… and if you are wise enough to accept that change."

Naruto's eyes drifted across the land resting in front of him for a moment, digesting the deep meaning before returning back to the Suna-nin, centering his attention on the unmarred hitai-ate tied to the konoichi's forehead. "…and you have no hatred toward your village?"

The woman beamed faintly, tracing the crevices of the insignia on her forehead protector while centering her sight on the ground beneath her. "To be honest, I wanted the entire world to pay for their sins against me, but over the years, it occurred to me that I had never before fought for politics or the council or even for the Kazekage; whenever I stepped into battle, the people I loved were what I was willing to lay down my life for, and that was what the village of Sunagakure was to me. Bearing such hatred toward them would be the same as hating everyone who I had ever cared about and had ever cared about me."

Naruto eyed the woman carefully, still wondering why she had so willingly told him her tale, but even with his lingering suspicion, he also felt a sense of honor in having heard the story of someone so forgiving, the warm sensation filling his entire body.

"Thank you."

Pakura's head swiveled toward the teenager, the frames of her eyes growing large with confusion as to why he was thanking her. She sluggishly turned forward again as the bewilderment faded into the ghost of a smile, her eyes closing peacefully. "You're welcome."

After a small glance back, one of the silhouettes jumped off a pillar to the ground below as a watchful pair of piercing blue eyes fell shut, having heard every word.

* * *

*Gan'u: rock rain (this literally exists in the Naruto World. I'm not even kidding; go look it up o-o)

*Jutsu-shiki: Technique Formula

*Shakuton no Pakura: Pakura of the Scorch Style

* * *

**Author's Note:**

As much as a few of you are probably disappointed that the "mystery konoichi" wasn't Kushina, I wanted to show how drastic and wide reaching a change of Hokages can be in this story, even to an extremely minor character like Pakura (and hopefully lead a few of you to guessing the correct hokage).The last conversation between Naruto and Pakura is actually a platform for a lot of themes I want to touch up on in this story, and a few of you attentive people might have also picked up on the allusion to our "_scariest"_ ANBU member.

If it doesn't say it's discontinued, it's not, so follow if you're interested. I'd love to here your thoughts, hypotheses, and reviews for me (they really help me through writer's blocks like this chapter (danke to those who did (;u;) I love you guys))! Thanks!

Minatochan2


	11. Amegakure, the Land of Eternal Rain

**Disclaimer:** If I said I owned Naruto, I think I would get sued faster than I could count to ten…and I can count to ten quite well mind you (. A .)

* * *

**Chapter 11:** Amegakure, the Land of Eternal Rain

The sun shone its farewell above the massive dunes of Wind Country, and the cloudless blue of the fading morning concurred with a peaceful glow. Autumn's wind blew by like a crowd of people, waving hands at a port to see off their friends, filling the sails of the ships there. It looked as if nature itself was wishing the group the best as they continued on their journey.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us, Pakura-san?" Minato inquired as they were about to part ways, the desert lying in the background as the cloudy mist of Ame could already be spotted in the other direction.

The Suna-nin smiled warmly but shook her head. "No. As harsh as it can be, this is where I belong." She glanced over her shoulder at the glistening sand behind. The late morning was freshly singing with the entrance of the fire-red sun, resting lowly on the tips of the grainy mountains that stretched to the sky.

Turning back to the shinobi, her eyes widened as she remembered something. "Ah!" She immediately began digging into the pouch tied to her thigh. "I almost forgot! I noticed you were getting low on rations and thought you might want some food to last you for the trip." She handed the squad leader a wrapped package, who accepted it with a questioning look. "It's some roots from the few desert plants that grow here. They're a little bitter, but they'll hold you for a long time. Besides, I'm sure you grown men can handle a bit of a nasty aftertaste." Pakura shot a teasing look toward the group's only teenager, who scowled silently at the jest.

"Thank you very much for your help," Kakashi entered, dipping his head politely as Minato stowed the food away. Naruto concurred with a happy grin, his arms casually folded behind his head. The slightly lessened restrictions the blonde had been experiencing lately made him feel more relaxed with his position, although he retained quite a few doubts and a healthy amount skepticism toward his fellow travelers.

"Well, then. We best be on our way if we're going to make it to Ame before high noon," Minato excused in a business-like tone. "I trust we'll see each other again within the _next_ five years, Pakura-san?"

"Bet your life on it, Yellow Flash," she spat with a competitive vigor. "I still want that battle with you— without holding back. The rejected heroes of Konoha and Suna sounds like an interesting match up, don't you think?" Her eyes flashed with a vivacious flame.

The addressed person sighed his small amusement at the challenge. "Make a point not to get yourself killed before then, and maybe you'll get your wish," he exhaled, turning and starting toward the foreboding clouds that were collecting over the opposing horizon.

"Naruto," the konoichi called abruptly, signaling for him to come closer while a surprised Kakashi waited a few meters away.

"What is it?" the teenager whispered, registering the masked shinobi out of the corner of his eye.

Pakura remained silent, intensely looking over his face before she spoke as if she was searching for a solution to something incredibly complex, something that she didn't understand. "Naruto… I don't know if you truly work for the Hokage or not, but if you do, it would be wise to get out while you still can. You're young, and you seem like you have a good head on your shoulders, so take it from someone who's been there: he's not the type of person that has your best interests at heart…" After a pause, she slowly stepped back, letting her advice sink in as she tied her scarf around her neck. "Keep that in mind."

Finally, the green-haired konoichi turned back to the one shinobi left. "Kakashi," Pakura duly noted as she headed back toward where they'd come, a simple wave materializing over her shoulder as a final good-bye before she vanished into the distance, swallowed up by the ever-changing desert.

* * *

As the group continued on toward their destination, the heat and drought of Wind Country gradually gave way to sweeping steel beams and iron bridges that cut through the barren landscape, a few spots of stubborn sand washing away from the downpour that rested ahead. The howling wind ripped and tore at whatever vegetation there was, endlessly weeping and forcing the rest of the world to feel its intense grief. However, as much as the entire country seemed to want vengeance on the earth, the truly dreary and appalling element was not one of nature's doing.

Naruto took in the macabre sight that they had encountered, wanting to look away but willing himself to see what was in front of him. Shivering puddles of rainwater collected in the pits of the ashen soil as meager trees bowed above them. Bits of broken wood and metal scattered the place next to the path they had been traveling on, some tainted a ghastly red. Taken from the same cloth as the garnet liquid, the smell of death coagulated the air itself, the breeze brushing the suffocating scent across the entire area and sucking the color out of the world, sparing only the brazen scarlet amid the monochrome setting of the patchy forest.

An entire village lay abandoned, a number of houses smoldering, coughing up black wisps of smoke that collapsed against blistering gusts of moist air. The people who had once lived in the town were certainly no longer there, either removed from their homes or removed from the earth entirely.

It was recent.

Naruto caught a glimpse of the dim shine of metal at his feet. He gradually reached to pick up the object, a piece of cloth tied securely to the slab. The blonde hesitated for a moment, turning the item over in his hands. Watery mud stained the blue-gray fabric, and the question of its owner's fate was grim at best as Naruto dazedly noticed a few blotches of dark crimson. The horizontal scratch through four, vertical lines in the middle of the metal-piece was a sight the jinchuriki recalled having spied before.

Kakashi solemnly studied the teenager beside him for lengthy seconds, letting him have a moment to comprehend the destruction. "The Land of Rain has been caught in a civil war for years, although most people are unaware of it," he exhaled quietly. "It's sad to think how many people have lost their lives."

"…so it never ended here…" Naruto murmured distantly. The thought of Nagato and Konan lingered in his mind as well as that of his deceased sensei. He could see why Yahiko and the two of them would start a pacifist organization, having witnessed people fall left and right, innocent people who never wanted any part in an endless war. They lost their lives for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And for what? The right to say someone was the better warrior when they couldn't have possibly been the better man? Maybe they died for land? For fame? Money?

_Not even revenge…_

Naruto started as a raindrop fell onto the metal of the hitai-ate in his hands, glancing up at the enveloping gray sky. Within the next minute, the simple sprinkle had hastily evolved into a downpour that drenched the tranquil group. A trail of black soot bled from the ground in a stream under the assault of the bullets of white-streaking rain, and with it, the deep scarlet poured out from behind the cover of the wooden houses, the reflection of the depressing clouds in the puddles merging with the new liquid in an upsetting swirl that was stabbed with the dripping water.

"We must be getting close to Amegakure," Minato observed detachedly, lifting his forlorn gaze from the empty village and pulling a few damp bangs from his face. His figure could hardly be seen through the disruptive slashes of the rain, and the aura of the reflecting water droplets hovering around him only added to the haze. He sighed dismally. "There's nothing we can do… We have to keep moving."

Kakashi gently pulled Naruto from his withdrawn reverie, sending an apologetic look his way. The blonde let him, pensively letting the hitai-ate slip from his fingers, and both turned to trudge after the silent ghost of the shinobi up ahead.

No one bothered to talk about what they'd crossed. The need wasn't an important one, and the sloshing of the water on the simple dirt path was enough conversation to last for a long time.

"Why?" the teenager asked, finally shattering the fragile silence that had stretched over them. Everyone else instantly understood the context of the question, the same heavyhearted thoughts having been slumbering in their minds.

The Copy-nin was the one left to provide some sort of answer, Minato remaining dolefully silent.

"I don't know."

* * *

The rain never eased throughout the rest of the trip to Ame, darting toward the ground with a killing intent. It wasn't long before oppressively tall, metallic buildings stood guard over the entrance of the city and fought back against the onslaught, remaining strong in their tyrannical oppression of the village's inhabitants. Alleys crisscrossed and composed the majority of the area that wasn't crammed with street-side markets and run-down apartments. It was impossible to tell what time of day it was with the constant hovering of angry rain clouds, blotting out the sun, but the drizzling of water off the tired rooftops hardly drowned any of the voices that boomed from the cramped shops, beams of light cutting out of windows and doors through the weather's shadow. Aside from that, the gray-scale village of Amegakure and its citizens remained a dreary sight.

In the manageable bustle, glints of white and yellow stood apart.

"We'll split up and meet back here within a few hours," Minato planned, shadowing his eyes to see past the drips of the rain to map out where he was going. "Kakashi, you go and find the others while I take care of some business. They should be around here somewhere."

"Understood, sensei." The Copy-nin gave a lazy salute, but at the mention of the order, his tired eye casually slipped to the teenager next to him. The motion didn't go unnoticed by Naruto, who was suddenly infected with a wave of skepticism. Meanwhile, Minato had noted the acceptance with a small dip of his head and started heading toward the adjacent alley through the dispersing swarm of people while his student went the opposite way. Naruto started going the same way Kakashi was, not given any clear direction and knowledgeable of the other choice of company. Even with his alternate-sensei's lack of conversation skills (or lack of conversation attempts), going with the Yellow Flash would be worse than being chained to a dead man, a certain death wish.

A voice raced across the noise of the markets.

"Oi! Blondie!"

Naruto instantly froze, praying in his head that his recently fabricated nightmare wasn't going to become reality. It rapidly became a mantra that he repeated over and over to himself. _Please, don't be what I think…!_

"You're stuck with me for right now."

The teenager could hear his future self rolling over in his future grave. He'd just heard the last nail being driven into the coffin with that sentence.

_You have_ got _to be kidding me, datte bayo_…

At least there was one silver lining: Kurama was going to be joining his jinchuriki in the future cemetery. That much was certain. The fox was probably going to laugh himself to death at the twist.

With a painful slowness that he was certain would've creaked had there not been so much noise around, Naruto rotated to face his personal demon, Kakashi watching with bland intrigue from a few feet away. The teenager held his breath, putting on a valiant effort not to cringe as he began the agonizing march back while watching the ground inch by in front of him. Eventually, he stopped when he spied a pair of blue zori in his downward line of sight. One of them was tapping impatiently.

Naruto was certain that the gravitational pressure of the earth had somehow increased the second he tried to lift his head up; he could never remember a time when looking at someone's face had been such a dreadfully slow procedure. His vision gradually made it to the chest-level of a green flak vest, and he forced himself to match the feline eyes staring him down.

Minato's expression was one of amusement— the exact opposite, that is.

"If you don't mind, I've got stuff to do, so stay close, and don't get lost," the shinobi stated flatly, his arms folded sternly across his chest.

Dread was hurriedly replaced with diluted fury as Naruto's eye twitched at the comment, struggling to keep himself from bursting with a string of the intricate insults he had been concocting for the past five weeks. If the guy was so busy, why did he need him around anyway?! But Minato obviously had _something_ important to do as he quickly turned around and started down the back-street he had been headed toward a moment earlier, so Naruto vented his frustration through the few daggers he was staring at him, aiming the glare at the center of the adult's back.

But after five minutes of walking, the teenager grew bored with trailing behind the man and glanced around the alley they had turned into. They had passed by a few, weak streetlights that barely changed the pitiful status of the environment around them. Trash and decay littered the edges of the walkway, and the occasional door on the street-level popped up, bolted and locked shut. It wasn't hard to guess that the two blondes were in the shady district of Amegakure.

"Hey, what are we doing here?" Naruto whispered through his teeth, noting the pungent smell of alcohol and filth.

Minato ignored him.

The teenager scowled, stomping up next to the older blonde. "What are we doing here?"

Minato's sight calculatingly wavered toward him, politely warning him of his complacence. "None of your business, and I thought I told you to keep quiet."

Naruto picked up his feet to step over a collapsed can of trash, eyes still focused on the man leading him blindly through the back-streets. "If I have to come along, I think it is. And you only told me not to get lost."

"How foolish of me to forget. I'll remedy that mistake." Minato swiftly stabbed his unwelcome company with a strict look. "Shut up."

At that, Naruto groaned inwardly and fell back in line behind the shinobi. Kakashi was much more forgiving when it came to asking questions and giving answers, even if they were vague and probably had an alternative motive, but the blonde figured he'd just have to sit tight and keep his trap shut if he was going to last the next, painful hours with the Yellow Flash. It wasn't Naruto's favorite tactic, but he couldn't complain with the results.

To keep his mind occupied, the jinchuriki resumed studying their location while they walked.

_Jiraiya-sensei must've died somewhere around here_, Naruto thought sentimentally, absorbing the view of the foreboding buildings that curved over the street in a hellish, optical illusion. He wished his Godfather's resting place had been somewhere a little more inviting. Then again, Naruto had caught sight of numerous brothels with an embarrassed smirk. Maybe the man had died happily. The jinchuriki smiled bitter-sweetly at the memories. _Ero-senin…_ He shook the thoughts of the pervert from his head as Minato had stopped a meter in front of him.

"Keep quiet, and don't get into trouble," Minato reiterated as he turned the handle to a door, still in the anonymity of the alleyway.

Naruto spent a moment scrutinizing the outside of the building they had wound up by. It looked even more decayed and grimy than most of the others. A cluster of tattered posters stuck to the steel exterior, the print on them stained and illegible, and a dull lamp wavered above the solid brown door that shed a circle of light, revealing the location of every drop of rain.

Minato didn't waste time going in, Naruto quickly stumbling after him once he noticed the shinobi's absence. A bell jingled above the entrance when they walked in, and a slip of the layer of smoke that clotted the wooded ceiling snaked through to the outside. Clumps of people kept to the shady corners of what looked like some sort of tavern or inn, most of the loud noise that had been inside the building quieting as multiple of them had stopped chatting to cynically analyze the newcomers. The jinchuriki uneasily glanced from side to side. He traced their eyes back to Minato's uniform, most notably the unassuming green of his vest.

Naruto continued to return the stares, the nonchalant person in the lead hardly seeming to notice as they weaved to the counter. In the dim radiance spared, a hitai-ate flashed from one of the darkest corners, an Amegakure insignia cut clean through. Its wearer was studying them the most intently, a deep scar cut into the man's face.

Naruto broke off the momentary stand-off and slipped onto the stool directly by the Yellow Flash, wondering what type of business the man had to do in a place that shady. Gradually, the chatter of the people around started back up again full-force, and the residence of the shop looked pacified with the two blondes, returning the tense air to normal. Naruto sighed in relief, resting his folded arms on the counter. He hadn't been scared, but having a dozen people look like they wanted nothing better than to go on a killing spree— and make you their first victim— was an unnerving feeling at best.

"What can I do you for?" a woman entered from behind the counter, rubbing out a mug in a cliché fashion. She was a broad-shouldered person, her hair plastered to the side of her face in a waterfall of brown curls, and her irises swept over the two with a welcoming but still weary manner. With the way she carried herself, it wasn't hard to guess that she was most likely the owner.

"A source of mine mentioned this place had someone who could help me out with a… small problem," Minato explained vaguely, the blue of his eyes flashing dangerously. The woman's welcoming demeanor evolved into complete suspicion, but after a few seconds, she smoothly signaled for someone else to fill in for her and vanished into a back room.

"Hello! Would you like me to get you anything?" a new waitress beamed, peculiarly joyful for being in such a run-down dump. She probably hadn't worked there long.

The girl's eyes widened faintly when she caught sight of Minato's hitai-ate, lingering over the crossed out symbol while the shinobi watched her curiously. "It's on the house," she added hurriedly, her annoyingly happy smile returning with a hint of nervousness.

Minato observed the waitress distrustfully, his arms crossed over his chest. "No thank you. We're not here for—"

"Miso Ramen!" Naruto's hand shot up with a giddy grin. He almost wanted to kick the person next to him, regardless whether he was his captor or not. Rejecting an offer of free food? The shinobi must have been insane.

"Alright," the woman nodded, jotting down a few characters in a tiny notebook she had plucked from her shirt pocket. "And you, sir?" She pointed the end of her pen toward Minato, who suddenly had his face hidden in a palm as if he'd rather have been anywhere but where he was. His fingers gradually retreated back to rub his temples. "Water, thanks," he exhaled, clearly exasperated, and he didn't open his closed eyes until after the girl disappeared.

The adult shot a critical glare toward the teenager next to him. "What do you think you're doing?" he growled quietly. With the look he was getting, Naruto figured the Yellow Flash probably wanted to cut his head off, but they were in public, and getting blood stains on the upholstery of a place that was feeding them free of charge would have been just plain rude— not to mention that all of their secrecy would've been throw out the window.

"It would be impolite to refuse, and I'm hungry, datte bayo," the teenager retorted as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Pakura had made a good point about the after-taste when she had offered her rations, and the low grumbling of his stomach had a mind of its own when it came to food.

But by the end of the sentence, Minato's view had crystallized on him in a surprised fashion.

"What did you say?"

Naruto flinched. "'…da…tte bayo?'" the teenager repeated questioningly, turning his blue eyes to his unhappy guard. His heart almost skipped a beat. He'd forgotten about his verbal tick. Maybe the man still knew Kushina…!?

"I can't really control it. Just kinda pops out, tte bayo," he continued with a hopeful smirk, trying to drop a few hints that might get him one step closer to gaining a bit of trust.

Minato watched him attentively, his mouth pulled to the side in a serious and analytical expression. A moment passed, and he quickly snapped his attention forward and focused on a spot on the wall. "Well, learn to control it, or don't talk at all. I don't want to hear it," he muttered distantly.

Naruto scrunched up his face at the failure and dug the expression behind his folded arms on the table with a frustrated sigh. He had been about to take one step forward, but the only thing that happened was a step back. The blonde blocked out Kurama's muffled snickers and slid his forehead onto the table. _Why is it so tough to get anywhere with this guy?_ he thought angrily, having reached the end of his rope. _Things would've been better with Kakashi. _The jinchuriki placidly wondered where the Copy-nin was.

"Here you go," the waitress spun back into view, the smell of ramen on her heels as she set down the bowl and glass. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

Minato moved the glass of water closer to himself, looking rather annoyed. "Yes, _is_ there anything else she can do for us?"

Avoiding the obvious jab, the teenager cupped his chin thoughtfully. "Mmm, nope! I don't think so." Another cheeky grin flash across his face as he grabbed a set of chopsticks and pulled his noodles directly in front of him.

Minato released another sigh, thanking the waitress as Naruto clapped his hands together, chirped a quick "Itadakimasu!", and hurriedly shoveled noodles into his mouth. They weren't nearly as good as Ichiraku's, but it was close enough, and the warm singeing of the broth on his tongue was lovingly embraced after the few months they'd spent apart.

Minato watched the jinchuriki wharf down the meal, and after a minute, he peeled his eyes off the teenager— a pretty gluttonous sight— and lifted his water up to eye level, skeptically scrutinizing the liquid and lightly sniffing the top of the glass before deciding it was safe enough to drink.

Once he had set down the glass, Minato casually pushed the cup farthest away from himself, seeming entertained with the swishing of the liquid as it started to settle, He finally moved his gaze to the ramen-addict sitting next to him. "You're very strange, you know," he observed critically.

Naruto hesitated in refilling the hole in his mouth before opting on setting down his chopsticks. An actual conversation from the rebel-nin was as frequent as an on-time Kakashi, and he'd feel foolish for not taking the opportunity.

The teenager leaned forward on the counter. "That's funny. Pakura just mentioned something like that the other night, tte bayo."

The Yellow Flash's rocky expression didn't change, even though his eye twitched slightly at the last bit, and for some reason, he decided not to make a comment. Instead, he retrieved his glass and took another swig. "Can you blame her?" He set it back down.

"Nah, I am kinda strange," Naruto admitted, twirling his lonely chopsticks around his fingers. "And I doubt it'll be the last time I'll hear it."

"Right," the older blonde agreed, suddenly looking back at the table. He almost seemed unnerved — like he faintly regretted doing something or maybe not doing something. Naruto studied him a little more thoroughly. It was hard to tell with the way his disposition never changed, but his eyes looked different. The jinchuriki couldn't quite put a finger on it.

But within the next blink, the look was gone. "Just as long as we're both clear on who's in charge here." The blonde settled his arms on the table, waiting for any reply from his company.

"Sure, sure," Naruto instantly agreed, his hands held up defensively.

The teenager figured he must've imagined the disheartened appearance.

Soon enough, Minato had returned to his usual past-time of staring gloomily at the wall as if nothing had happened at all while Naruto was left to resume attacking his noodles— a little slower this time.

The teenager swallowed down whatever had been in his mouth just as a scrawny, disheveled man joined their company from across the counter. He exerted a clandestine aura, his slanted black eyes and hooked nose pointed toward Minato with all the severity in the world. His voice was thick and oily but also strained and scratchy. Naruto nearly choked when the man's smell finally began to catch up with him. There might as well have been a rotting animal behind the counter.

"I heard you had a problem."

The newcomer's vision twitched from Minato to Naruto, sizing him up like he was an ignorant lamb being led to the slaughter. At the silent threat, Naruto did his best to return look with even more fierceness.

"Yeah," Minato replied cautiously. He smoothed back his hair stressfully as if he had a major decision to make, but he slipped off his stool to follow the man as he hobbled into one of the many back rooms. The blonde paused for a hesitant minute before whirling back around. "Blondie," the shinobi addressed quickly, tapping the spot of Naruto's forearm where his troublesome fuuinjutsu was inscribed. "Stay."

The teenager snorted as Minato turned away. "'Blondie, stay,'" he mocked mutedly once the man had gone. "What does he think I am: a dog?" Naruto crossly stuffed another mouthful of noodles into his face.

Still, as much as the temporary leave of absence was welcomed, Naruto wondered what the adult was doing. He had half a mind to ask what his "small problem" was, but then again, the teenager had amassed a mountain of things that he could ask about, and they were all much more important. He doubted he'd ever get any answers, and the enigma of the Yellow Flash was multiplied by the mounting pile of questions that he left behind, each of them like a coded message that showed bleak interest in being cracked.

It was a lost cause.

Naruto chewed wonderingly on his chopsticks as he continued to watch the uninteresting wall, hoping that he could hear something from the other room. But the sound of heavy footsteps killed any hope of that, lumbering over the whine of the floor. He instantly perked up when that very whine stopped right beside him.

A pair of dark eyes peered out from underneath a pointed jingasa* at his back. "You're from Konoha," the man stated gruffly, his vision stuck to the Uzumaki swirl. Naruto's head flickered to the side to better see who had addressed him. However, the blonde quickly found his gaze being drawn upward.

The man loomed over the seated blonde, his hostile gaze coupled with the ramparts of his broad shoulders a threatening sight; the newcomer's expression had practically declared war on the spinning, red emblem – that is, if his previous statement hadn't already.

"And what if I am?" Naruto mumbled, twisting his torso so the two were face to face.

The man's countenance remained as stony as ever. "Konoha-nin are not welcome here in Ame."

"Sorry, didn't get the memo."

The stranger seemed distantly riled by the casual response, squarely landing his mountain of a body on the stool otherwise reserved for the Yellow Flash. "Remind your Hokage of it when you return then."

Kurama and Naruto exchanged surprised and hopeful looks for a moment. Even if this guy had some kind of bone to pick with him, it looked like there could be some political intelligence gained from a chat, although it required a tiny bluff.

"Yeah," Naruto replied with a forced smoothness, passively probing for a fishcake with his chopsticks. "I doubt anyone would listen to me right now, let along Hokage-sama. You'll have to take it up with _your_ leader."

"Don't play dumb!" the man snapped in a whisper. It was obvious that he was conscious about potential eaves-droppers as his voice immediately lowered again. "If it weren't for your meddling village, Akatsuki would've done away with Hanzo a long time ago!"

It was Naruto's turn to retort. "Akatsuki!?" The blonde's sight flew to meet the stranger. "Akatsuki was nothing more than a band of assassins!"

The countertop was nearly dented as it collided with the blunt side of a fist. "They were framed by Konohagakure! Those Ame shinobi – it was a setup by your Hokage to make our dictator all the more paranoid!"

_Framed?_ Naruto observed the man in astonishment, not daring to push further. He certainly was passionate, but what he was talking about sounded like some full-blown conspiracy. But Akatsuki…. Naruto let his face fall into a more ambiguous state as he observed the man next to him. He doubted he'd get much more out of the person without exposing exactly how little he really knew about current diplomatic affairs, but the blonde reasoned he could work with what he got.

_A "meddling village", huh?_

That would definitely require a meddling Hokage.

Naruto would remember to discuss it with Kurama later.

Meanwhile, the sudden outburst, unrestrained by the need for covertness, had immediately silenced everyone in the area. Only the swinging, orange lamps dangling from the ceiling denied the suffocating silence, a few strangled gasps leaking from their hinged throats.

A glass shattered on the floor.

The stranger, automatically comprehending how much of a scene he had made, slowly retracted his hand from the countertop, sluggishly standing. His black, tired eyes drilled holes into his teenage opposition.

The ecstatic— now flustered – waitress rematerialized with a dustpan and broom and scurried past to one of the far side tables. Neither Naruto nor the foreigner bothered to separate their eyes.

"Don't judge everything by what you hear," the man thundered lowly after a few moments of quiet. His semblance became condescending with further thought. "Then again," he scoffed. "What should I expect of someone from Konoha?"

Naruto flinched, watching the man as he slipped away to a table near the corner. Like before, conversation hastily resurfaced in the room, almost as though to fill the void of awkward silence. Things were certainly different in this place – disturbingly so.

The blonde watched the waitress scamper back behind the counter with the new load of cracked glassware before eying his now cold noodles with distaste. He'd half lost his appetite, but it almost seemed unfair that as heavenly a dish as ramen be made casualty. With aloofness, he picked up his chopsticks and prodded the tranquil broth, noting how a few drops had flown onto the table. The jinchuriki's vision shifted to his left. The counter remained dented on the top, although one would have to stare at it for a while to notice. It didn't look like it'd be an easy wound to repair, either.

Naruto glanced up at the sound of a door closing from ahead of him. A familiar blonde made an entrance from one of the back areas with a stressed sigh. He looked as if he instantly had compunction. The shinobi shrugged off whatever he was feeling and made his way around the counter back toward his teenage deadweight.

"Oi, you get your 'small problem' solved, tte bayo?" Naruto asked artlessly, observing the man who put his hands in his pockets.

"No." Minato's qualm appeared to worsen, but he casually continued the conversation with bleak intrigue. "Lose your appetite?" His eyes glazed over the untouched ramen.

Naruto set down his chopsticks. "Sorta." He wasn't sure if the Yellow Flash was actually interested or if he was just digging for information. It always seemed to be the second option, and based on how he was standing just as threateningly as the jinchuriki's prior visitor, he gathered they both felt about the same way as him.

"Hm," Minato hummed aloofly. "We have to find Kakashi. Let's go."

Naruto compliantly scooted his unfinished bowl closer to the opposing end of the counter and hurried to catch up with the other blonde. "I thought you weren't supposed to meet up for a few more hours," the teenager noted as they – thankfully – turned out of the inn and back into the drizzling alley with a gloomily cheerful ding of the door's bell.

"Knowing Kakashi, he's probably lost somewhere," came the austere –nigh miserable— reply.

"Ah, right…" Naruto agreed. The despondent response almost seemed to humanize the ex-konha-nin, if only a little, and the concept was bizarre but encouraging. He skipped up closer to him. "Well, what was your 'small problem' then?"

Minato shot him a stifling look out of the side of his eyes. "Nice try."

"…could I guess?" Naruto bounded up to him again after having dejectedly fallen back.

"No. However, you could be quiet."

Naruto scrunched up his face. "It wouldn't have anything to do with me, would it?"

"You being quiet would have something to do with you, yes."

"Gah," the teenager itched at the back of his damp head. "I mean your problem, tte bayo."

"Ah, my problem," the man almost sounded apathetically sarcastic. "I have an aching premonition that you might always be a problem of mine."

"An aching _what_?"

"You ask too many questions."

* * *

A scarred man had watched the two blondes leave, the scratch over the Amegakure insignia blazing in the orange light of the inn that mingled into the dark corner. "I'm surprised the Kiiroi no Senko* would come to Ame," the man muttered, his eyes still fixed on the long-since-closed door.

"Must've been easy to sneak through with all the outside turmoil. Lots of the guards _are_ aligned with Akatsuki, after all," another person commented, the jingasa still covertly settled on his head as dull, black eyes peered out from underneath them.

"Yeah. Even so, keep quiet when talking about organization matters, Kanryu-san." The scarred individual removed his sight from the entrance for the first time since the visitors had left. "You could have stirred up some real trouble, going around yelling 'Akatsuki', even in our territory.

"I knew I should've been the one to talk to him; you're too volatile to get any important information."

Kanryu glowered. "The brat had it coming, talking about assassins and what-not. Looks like even in Konoha they brainwash their shinobi." He spat indignantly and tapped the counter with a finger. "Bah, but look at you lecturing me! You couldn't have picked a more obvious signal – breaking a mug. I'm sure I could've gotten to know at least a little more about our unexpected guests."

"Doubtable. Tavern glasses were meant to be broken anyway," the other, smaller person replied bluntly, observing his own with little interest.

His friend snorted. "Over someone's head—not on the floor!"

"Just like I said, you always were the violent one, Kanryu-san." The less bulky of the two readjusted his haori*. "Regardless, we have more important business, anyway." He turned a set of green irises to their third, silent companion, a large cloak thrown over her shoulders.

"Should I follow them, Tenshi-sama*?"

"...no. The Kiiroi no Senko could prove a priceless ally to our cause, regardless of his companion's backwards allegiances. We can be patient." The young woman opened her opaque eyes, a small origami flower pinned to the side of her hair. "Besides, I have the strangest feeling that we will cross paths again."

* * *

*jingasa: (trans: _War hat_.) Ranging from flat or rounded, jingasa are more commonly discus shaped and not to be mistaken with a rice farmer's hat, but the basic aesthetics are the same.

*Kiiroi no Senko: Yellow Flash (AN: It seemed more formal to refer to Minato in Japanese rather than English, here.)

Haori: half-coat emblazoned with the wearer's familial crest

*Tenshi-sama: Lady Angel

* * *

**Author's Note:**

...should I even bother apologizing for late updates anymore? /xD I need stickers that I can slam on these with excuses. The first edition could include stirring rhetoric like "School kills. Fight the Power" or the classic "Fell Out of Bed and Broke My Face". I bet I could be a millionaire with ideas like that….

Next chapter will not be out for quite a while, but it also includes the identity of our AU Yondaime, so take your last guesses if you like having meaningless bragging rights. It's a biggy.

_Row, row, row your boat,_

_Gently down the stream,_

_Throw your teacher(s) overboard,_

_[But only if they're mean!]_

_…_

_3_

If it doesn't say it's discontinued, it's not, so please follow/review until then, thanks! ;)

Minatochan2


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